The Black Kings Ace
by darkgaaraluver
Summary: Lelouch's final act dosen't work right and instead of dieing he is doomed to travel to a different world, the D.Grey-man world. Contains yaoi and possible yuri later. HIATUS
1. Prologue

warnings: yaoi and thoughts of suicide

Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass or -man and make no money from writing this and all that other stuff.

thanks to my Beta who doesn't even know either of these animes and still puts up with my grammer ^^'

The Black King's Ace

_by darkgaaraluver_

_Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina_

_Prologue_

I felt the searing agony as Suzaku stabbed his sword through my chest. I had finally found a way to die after all the things I did, all the people I'd had to kill. Suzaku even got his wish to be the one to kill me after I'd forced him to live when he was trying so hard to die. The only problem I'd encountered was the Code my blasted father had forced upon me before I sent him to C's world for eternity. The Code made me immortal until I gave it to somebody else. Suzaku agreed to become the Zero, and now he gets to stay the Zero forever.

As the sword came out the other side of my chest, I brought my blood-covered hand up and touched Suzaku's face through the Zero mask, transfering my code. It was funny really, Suzaku wanted to kill me so much, and yet he was crying in his moment of triumph. As he pulled his sword out, I felt my body fall forward and down the ramp that led to my abandoned throne. By now, the pain was so great that I was becoming numb. I was so tired, I just wanted to close my eyes. I had already seen far too much at seventeen.

I looked over a Kallen as I fell, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. She was cringing away. I then landed on the platform of the float that I had Nunally chained to. She crawled over to me and put my head in her lap. I was so sorry that I had to put her through so much. I loved her more than anything in this world or any other. It was nice to look in her eyes at the end though, after she spent so long with her big blue eyes sealed shut with Geass. She was crying.

When she touched me I felt a strange information transfer take place, and I was at a loss for a moment. But then I knew that she was aware of everything she hadn't been before. My plan behind becoming emporer of the world, everything I'd done to get where I was, and how it was all for her. My eyes finally closed, and the last things I heard were the resistance rushing in, the crowd cheering the death of the evil king, and one lone voice, my sister's, screaming my name in agony.


	2. Fate hates me

AN: I forgot to mention some things oops? Any way the most important thing is that you don't need a fully developed geass to get the immortal code you just have to be really strong and have a strong sense of purpose. C2 couldn't give Lelouch the code earlier because he wasn't strong enough to handle it. Suzaku gained a reason to live after he became Zero. Sorry. If you have any more questions I'll answer them for you.

Disclaimer: don't own Code Geass or –man I just fuck with the characters

The Black King's Ace

_By Molly Ishida_

_Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina_

Chapter 1: Fate hates me

The next thing I knew, I was rushing past a pure white landscape, my clothing gone. I was calm, however, as I recognized C's world immediately. I was not surprised to have ended up here when I died, for this place was the collective consciousness of everyone in existence, alive or dead. I was surprised, however, to find myself zooming into C2's area of C's world, the pictures of her from her past surrounding me on all sides as I slowed down. When I came to a complete stop, I was facing the copy of C2 that lived in C's world permanently. I saw that she was wearing a smirk on her face and knew that I was about to hear some extremely bad news.

"Why, hello, Lelouch," she smirked, "I wasn't expecting to see you here for awhile."

I smiled kindly back at her before giving my signature greeting, "Witch."

She smiled back briefly, the smile, as always, not making it to her golden eyes, before adopting a serious expression. I knew she was about to tell me the reason I wasn't dying like a normal person would. "I suppose you want to know your fate." I guess I was right. "When you tried to give The Code to Suzaku you failed, you did not remain in contact for long enough. You only managed to give him half The Code."

"Wait, if I only gave him half my Code... that means I'm not really dead, am I?" I hoped that I was wrong in my reasoning, I really did. I was fully sick of living in the twisted world that my father and the power of Geass had created. The only thing that kept me focused on my plans during my life there was the strange turn in the relationship between Suzaku and myself.

As I felt my expression darken, I thought I sensed a feeling of worry coming off the Witch, but no change in her expression took place. Instead she continued explaining what had happened. "Your body in that world died as planned, however, your soul did not. Because of your half of an Immortal Code, your soul is being sent to a different universe. Your destiny in this new world has already been written. You may request anything from your world that is not living to take with you, as long as you can carry it. I am here to provide these things for you before you go."

"Alright, the first thing I'll need is my clothes, my casual clothes. Will I have my Geass in this world?" At C2's smirk I knew that she couldn't tell me one way or the other. I sighed, "Okay, if you can't tell me give me my special-colored contacts as well. I'm going to need money so transferring all my money into the right currency would be nice. As I died a king I should be pretty well-off. I'm also going to need a backpack with food, water, and extra clothes. Anything else can be procured in this new world." A very important thought just struck me, "If I gave Suzaku half the code, does that mean that when he dies he will be sent to a new world as well?"

"That would make sense, wouldn't it?" She was smirking again, I hated when she smirked.

My mind was taken off of Suzaku's fate when my clothes and a green backpack that probably contained the items I requested appeared on me. I was about to ask C2 were the things had come from when she lifted her hand and gave a little wave before rushing out of my sight as I was pulled forward. Everything blurred around me so fast that even if there were other things that I passed all I saw was white.

In the distance I saw a fast-approaching black dot that got bigger and bigger as I drew nearer. It grew until it was about a foot taller and a foot wider than me. As I was about to pass through it, I noticed it had an abnormal red glow about it, not that anything about this situation was normal, anyway. As I passed the hole an unpleasant chill swept down my body before I felt a severe stinging in my eyes. I automatically put both my hands over them, and vaguely had time to wonder if the sensation I was experiencing had anything to do with my geass power, before I hit a stone floor and passed out.

******Time Skip Three Hours**

It was cold, much colder than my bed at home was, or even my bed in the Black Knight's submarine. I cracked my eyes open slowly, in case I was captured by enemy forces. All I saw in front of me was grey stone tile. Slowly, I noticed that my nose had bled onto the stone. The puddle of blood had dried and crusted to one side of my face as evidence, not to mention my nose was throbbing. I must have broken it... The next thing that occurred to me was the blinding pain in my forehead. I closed my eyes for a moment and waited for the pain to dull to a manageable throb and then began to peel the dried blood from the side of my face. The blood reminded me of something, something important. Faces started flashing in front of my eyes: Nunnally, Kallen, C2, Shirley, helpless soldiers and citizens, but most often I saw Suzaku, I saw Suzaku thrusting his sword through my chest and crying after wanting to kill me for ages, me wiping my blood on his Zero mask and passing on half my Immortal Code.

I grunted low in my throat as the images flashed across my mind in a matter of seconds. I remembered everything and felt disgusted with myself for forgetting for even a moment the horrible acts I had committed to finally bring my old world to peace, the lives I'd destroyed.

I decided I had to see where the Witch had dumped me and painfully slipped my arms out of my green bag so I could turn to lie on my back. I looked up at a ceiling that from the floor seemed to go on forever. High on the wall to my left was a large shattered stained glass window. I realized I was in a church lying behind an old altar. I slowly sat up, taking care not to jar my shoulder, which, very quickly, let me know that it was dislocated, and was glad to have already removed my backpack because of it. As I stared up at the never-ending ceiling, I couldn't find a reason inside me to move myself from where I was.

I had no idea where I was. C2's copy had said that fate had written me a place here in this world. But what kind of fate could await someone as contaminated as me? At this point, living anywhere or doing anything felt like torture, not only to me, but to the people around me as well. I thought I had found the perfect way to die, but all I did was make it so I had to start over in a world where I couldn't pass on the rest on my Code to anyone. I doubt anyone here will be strong enough to pass my code onto ******and** be worthy to live with new beginnings after every life. By trying to die I had made it so I would live forever, doing nothing but switching worlds every once in a while.

I heard the door to the church open at the other end of the room, two pairs of footsteps entering, and looked again at the broken stained glass window above me to notice that it had gotten dark. In the back of my mind I wondered why anyone would be in a church this late and their reactions if they found me, but couldn't bring myself to really care. I don't think I could move if there was a service going on.

I ignored the people in the building until the doors opened again to admit someone with lighter footsteps then the other two; they were following some type of animal through the doors. I listened a little more closely than I had before, until a flock of bats passed over my head and the farther away set of the first two footsteps said something about arresting the new person who had entered the church. The voice was female and with the way she was giving orders, it sounded like she was an officer. From what I heard as I sat there, the new person had only come in after a cat and had almost attacked the officer because she had picked the thing up. I couldn't tell what gender this new person was and tried concentrating harder so I could catch it. I caught the click of handcuffs as the officer handcuffed the new person to the frame of a broken window.

I missed the rest of their talk when I heard muffled protests coming from a door by my head. I figured it must be the cop's partner and that he had ran through the door when the bats flew out and that I hadn't noticed because I was paying attention to the new person and the other officer's conversation. They didn't seem to hear him as he became more panicked.

I sighed and made a decision. I couldn't just stay here forever. I may as well make sure nothing too bad was happening. I didn't want anything nasty sneaking up on me. If I died again, I'd just get sent to another new world. And if that happened, I would never find someone to give the rest of my curse to. I slowly got on my knees and put my bag on my back, careful of my shoulder, and trying not to be heard by the other two people in the church. I crept over to the door the other officer had run through and opened it slowly so it wouldn't creak. I was careful to leave it ajar so I could get away quickly if someone else was in the room.

When I turned around I saw that a portion of the wall was blown away. I froze in my tracks when I saw what was flying away from the hole; it was a monster that looked like a grey balloon made of stone with cannons coming out all over its body. I glimpsed its face right before it turned and what I saw was horrendous. It had a white face with pure black eyes and mouth the features radiating pure agony.

My eyes were drawn to a man in the center of the room when he started screaming. I guess the others heard him that time, because I heard two sets of footsteps running to the door, the lighter ones of the non-officer following a couple meters behind. I barely had the sense to step from right in front of the door as they burst through. When they got there, I saw why the man was screaming. He was completely covered in black stars, and then, with no warning at all, he turned to dust. I heard the woman behind me screaming for her partner, but I could only take a few more steps forward in shock.

The figure who had been handcuffed grabbed the women and rushed forward to try and take my arm; I saw that he was just a teenager a few years younger than me. He tried to cover my mouth with his strange red hand, his other hand was over the female officer's mouth and he was saying something about poison.

I ignored his grip on me and crawled to where the man had turned to dust. I put both my hands in his ashes and brought them up to my face. I knew I was looking at dust, but all I could see was blood. I looked down at the pile and saw Shirley lying dead on the floor with a bullet wound through her chest. It was just like before; she kept saying she'd love me in a different lifetime. I felt tears rush down my face, just like last time. Shirley disappeared, but my hands were still covered in blood. This time when I looked down I saw Rollo in my arms, he was telling me what a good brother I had been and how I was such a liar.

Rollo disappeared to, and again I was left looking at my blood-soaked hands. The blood was coming from me this time, the sword pressed through my chest. I had gotten the blood on me when I had grabbed the wound. I reach forward and touched my hand to the Zero mask covering Suzaku's face, passing on half the geass.

The scene changed again. This time my hand was still on Suzaku's face. But his face wasn't covered with the burden of the Zero mask. His eyes were half-lidded as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. They felt rough and chapped against my softer ones. I leaned farther into the kiss; I never thought I'd get another chance like this one.

All of a sudden he was pulling away. He stood up and walked backwards a few steps, leaving me kneeling on the floor. I reached my hand out to stop him, I couldn't seem to stand. I couldn't let him leave now, so I yelled, "Wait, come back! You can't betray me now, not again!"

He stared at me with the blank face of his that secretly scares me; he is not the type of person who should be hiding their feelings like that. He opened his mouth and said one of the harshest things he could at that point in his coldest voice, "You need to wake up now".


	3. meeting the ace

AN:so this is my first story, sorry not to tell you sooner.

Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass or -man I just fuck with the charactors

The Black King's Ace

_by Molly Ishida_

_Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina_

Chapter 2: Meeting the Ace Of Spades

_Suzaku's words shocked me to the core. I wanted to continue calling after him, but something inside kept me from saying more. I stared at his mouth, as if hoping he would say that he was sorry. The words came again through his delicious lips, "You need to wake up." The words were just as hard as the first time, the tone biting, and cold._

_Something was wrong this time, though. Suzaku had disappeared completely, and I was left in complete darkness. The voice continued, but it was no longer Suzaku's and it no longer carried the stern tone. The voice that called for me to awaken sounded panicked, and younger. I suddenly felt that my eyes were closed, and that I was laying on something only vaguely comfortable that made me want to stretch._

The voice was still calling, and now I was aware that my eyes were closed and that I had indeed been sleeping. It seemed foolish to make the owner of the voice wait much longer for me. My eyes didn't seem to agree with my decision and were difficult to open. Only the thought that I had no idea where I was or what was going on around me gave me the strength to accomplish the task.

When my lids had raised, the first thing I saw was a pair of light grey eyes hovering over me. Uncomfortable with the lack of space between us, I was almost tempted to back further into the couch I was laying on. I must have shown my discomfort, for when this person saw my expression, they backed up immediately. When he did, I was able to finally get a good look at him. It was the boy from earlier, that much was apparent. He had shocking white hair and an abnormal scar down his left eye that I hadn't noticed before. Idly, I realized that I had been lax in my observations and would work harder to remedy that. He was wearing a white button-up shirt cover with a grey button-up vest with a ribbon bow-tie, black pants and tall boots. His disfigured hand that he had held me back with before had a black covering over the middle. I saw that he had a small light brown suitcase behind him and a fat off-white cat near his feet. My bag was in front of the couch I was laying on.

When I looked back up at his face, he didn't seem to find my appraisal odd and had a relieved smile on his face. When he noticed my questioning look he decided to finally give me some answers, "Sorry I had to wake you up, but you were crying. I figured you were having a nightmare. Waking you up seemed the right thing to do, especially when you started screaming for someone to come back and not betray you again. That was when I tried to wake you up."

Well, I guess that explained my dream at least. I still had other questions however. "Who are you and where are we?"

His smile became a grin, "My name's Allen Walker and we're at the police station. What's your name?"

This question was very interesting. I had so many names and so many personae. I wondered which to use. Then, I decided on the truth for once. After all it didn't really matter anymore, did it? "My name is Lelouch Vi Britannia; may I ask what happened to cause my sleeping state?"

My question seemed to finally result in an end to his smile. "When the man died from the poison you crawled up to his ashes and covered your hands in them. I thought you were just a bit shocked or upset, but then you passed out. Officer Moore passed out from the poison gas so I had to carry both of you here to rest. Apparently we both trespassed when we entered that church and are suspects in some disappearances." At this he scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously. It was just my luck to get sent to a police station for questioning my first day in a new world.

The conversation so far had uncovered one important fact about this world: the Britannian Empire didn't exist; it hadn't taken over any portion of the world. If Britannia was a ruling force here Allen would have immediately recognized me as the royalty that my heritage and name gave me. The unexpected news brought a smile to my face, and suddenly I couldn't stop myself from laughing. I had finally gotten out from under the Britannian Empire, and all I had to do was travel to a different world!

When I calmed down I noticed that my laughter had seemed to unnerve Allen and that a receptionist I hadn't seen before because she was behind me had stood up in alarm. A couple of officers from around the corner had even come to see what was going on. Allen shooed the cops away and calmed the receptionist while I was getting myself under control.

When everyone was gone or calmed he stared at me for a few minutes, as if trying to figure me out with one glance. Slowly I felt my face settle on a glare, as if daring him to ask what I was laughing at. The moment was interrupted by a portly man coming out of a door to my left and beckoning us in. He was, judging by his looks, the chief of police.

As soon as we stepped in the room, he pulled us both forward and handcuffed us to the table. I glanced dispassionately at mine, they were extremely old compared to the ones I was used to seeing and I could easily get out of them in an emergency. I guess it explained how Allen had followed that Officer Moore so quickly even though he was handcuffed. It did help build my growing suspicions that there was more to Allen than what one saw.

The chief seemed more interested in Allen than in me. Probably because I was unconscious when I was brought in and Allen wasn't. I listened closely as he asked Allen his name and why he had been in the church in the first place. I held back a smile when Allen said that he was chasing the fat cat I had seen earlier because it had eaten something of his master's. I wondered what this master had taught him in the first place. He must have mastered whatever it was because when the chief asked him where his master was he said that he was somewhere in India last time he saw him.

I had to restrain myself from jumping in surprise when the chief reached across the table and grabbed Allen's left hand that was pinned to the table and shouted, "Ha! Don't lie to me boy! You were the one to kill all the disappearing people and my dead officer! I caught you red-handed!"

Allen looked just as surprised as I was, but the difference was that I couldn't stop myself from laughing. The chief sounded so ridiculous. Getting caught red-handed was just an expression for people getting caught in the act. No matter how many people you kill, your hands don't turn red. I would know.

My chuckling seemed to have brought the chief's attention to me. He let go of Allen's hand and sat back in his chair, staring at me. My amusement ended quickly under his obnoxious glare. As much as I didn't like this man, I knew how to play my cards right. I gave him my best smile and asked in the most sincere voice I could muster, "Is there something wrong, Chief? You seem to be staring."

He didn't move his eyes off me as he answered, "Yes. I want to know why the hell you were in that church to begin with!"

"The answer to that is quite simple. I am merely a traveler with no money to pay for a place to lodge for the night. I saw the church and since it appeared abandoned I figured no one would mind my sleeping there." I replied in an innocent tone.

He still seemed suspicious of me, however, for he continued questioning me. "Even someone out of town should have heard of the cursed church where people keep disappearing. Even if you hadn't you should have heard of the police investigation tonight if you tried to find a place to sleep in town."

I was thinking quickly about how to respond to this when another cop entered the interrogation room with Allen's small suitcase and my bag. He set the baggage on the table between the two of us and the chief with the opening of Allen's suitcase facing the chief. The chief opened Allen's suitcase first and pulled everything out individually and set it on the table to his left. Allen had nothing unusual in his suitcase; all he had were some cloths and some money.

When he turned to my bag I was a bit nervous, the money I asked for from C2 would give away my lie of having no money to buy lodgings for the night. The first things he pulled out were a couple more sets of the outfit I had on now; black no-sleeve turtle necks, black pants with off center buttons, and two red coats with black lining that stopped just above my stomach, and some undergarments. The next thing he pulled out surprised me slightly but not enough to make me show it. It was my school uniform. Allen seemed more surprised to see it then I was. His eyes widened and he glanced from the coat of my uniform back to me a couple times before staring at it and sighing in relief. I guess he thought it was something else, although I have no idea what he thought it was. The uniform came with four white button-up shirts as well.

The next thing he pulled out shocked me more than the uniform and I was barely able to control my reaction. He pulled out a copy of my zero outfit, complete with cape. At this Allen looked over at me again and gave me a strange look. I pretended I hadn't noticed. The chief then pulled out my money with a frown on his face as he took out the entire contents of my wallet to reveal a great bit of money. I supposed it was even more then it looked because Allen was looking at it wide eyed. The chief looked a bit dubious as he pulled out a small velvet bag and emptied that on the table to reveal a small pile of gold. Both the chief and Allen were staring at me, I just stared straight into the chiefs eyes, daring him to say something.

The chief put the gold back in the velvet bag and the money back in my wallet before continuing. The next thing he pulled out probably should have shocked me but after the outfit I wasn't surprised at seeing my Zero mask with the back up so it would fit better. The two of them just continued staring. Under the mask was my gun I usually kept in my clothing for emergencies when I couldn't use geass. He set it down quickly, as if it would go off by just touching it. I realized that they knew it was a gun of some sort but, judging by their version of handcuffs, they had never seen one this advanced. I hadn't asked for my Zero things or my gun, I had to restrain myself from gashing my teeth in anger at C2's copy. The chief reached in quickly to grab the last two things and pulled out my contact case and my old chess set.

The two of them sat in silence. I certainly wasn't going to say anything if I wasn't asked. The chief finally seemed to have worked up his nerve to ask me the questions that needed asking when Ms. Moore ran in with a male officer following behind. As soon as she rushed in she started shouting, "Allen didn't do it! He's innocent! He was with me the entire time!"

The chief had stood up in indignation at being shouted at by a lower ranking officer and asked the man behind Ms. Moore what was going on. The man promptly replied, obviously fearing for his job, "She just woke up sir. We also finished gathering the information that we could from the crime scene, the hole in the wall could only be made by a weapon as large as a cannon. We searched the area and there are no weapons in the surrounding area that could create that hole."

Allen cut whatever reply the chief might have made off, "I know what did these things." Everyone in the room turned to look at him. He had a look of pain on his face as he spoke, "Their called akuma. I run into them quite often in my line of work. They evolve when they kill so if we don't catch it soon it will be impossible to catch. As an exorcist you have to allow me to help you with this case."

The room was again silent at Allen's words but this silence only lasted a minute before everyone burst out in laughter. I wondered if the things Allen was talking about were like the thing I saw fly from the wall. I didn't doubt it very much but I couldn't say anything here, if I did I would merely get laughed at as well.

When they were done laughing the chief adopted a grumpy expression as he said, "I don't have a reason to hold you any longer because neither of you have the capability to blast that hole in the wall that the shot that killed my officer came from, neither of you have been in town long enough to be suspects in the other disappearances. Since I still don't trust you, both of you will be staying with Officer Moore and her brother tonight."

Officer Moore and Allen looked shocked at the news but I wasn't really bothered. I didn't feel like wandering into town this late at night and going to this officer's house gave me the chance to find out more about this world. I was also curious about this Allen Walker fellow; he didn't seem the same as the imbecilic police. I might even be able to find out more about these akuma creatures, if what I saw was indeed an akuma. I had to learn everything possible about them. Nothing living should ever wear the expression that that thing had on its face, if you could even call that a face.

The male officer behind Officer Moore came and undid Allen's handcuffs first, then mine. As he undid my handcuffs he jolted my dislocated arm and I couldn't hold back my wince of pain. Allen saw it from the other side of the table where he was repacking his things, "Are you in pain? We cleaned the dried blood off your face and bandaged your head and nose but we couldn't look for or treat any other injuries while you were asleep and thrashing around so much."

"I dislocated my shoulder when I fell in the church before any of you came in." I glared at my shoulder; it just had to make things difficult.

Allen was giving me a sympathetic look, "I can snap it back in place for you if you want, I learned how when…"

Allen was cut off by my loud grunt of pain. Well Allen was talking and trying to comfort me the chief had snuck up behind me and snapped my shoulder in place before I was ready. I was sweating from the pain of having my arm jerked into my socket. I usually took pain a bit better than that, but the chief hadn't given me time to brace myself. By the time I got control of my pain enough to glare at the chief the male officer was running in with cloth for a sling. The male officer was the one to tie my arm up.

When the officer was done I crossed behind Allen and started trying to repack my bag with one hand. I felt a light tapping on my shoulder when I turned around I saw Allen smiling at me, "Here let me give you a hand with that."

I felt I had no choice but to accept, so I nodded my head. I watched him closely as he packed my things into my bag. This would be the perfect opportunity for him to get a closer look at my things. I didn't want him getting into things he didn't know how to operate or to steal anything.

The ride to Officer Moore's house was a silent one. I sat in the back seat of the antique car with Allen while the same officer that put my arm in a sling drove with Officer Moore in the passenger seat. I spent the trip pretending to look out the window while watching Allen stare at me from the corner of my eye so he wouldn't notice. Officer Moore had fallen back asleep with her head on her chest.

When I first saw the house Officer Moore lived in I was slightly surprised but unconcerned. When Allen saw that she lived next door to the abandoned church he was unable to suppress his astonishment. I could also tell that he was planning something. It didn't really take much to figure he was planning to sneak out of the house over to the church. I felt myself smirking as I got out of the car; it was shaping up to being an interesting night.

I stood back slightly as Allen and Officer Moore said goodbye to the other Officer and followed Officer Moore silently as she lead Allen and I to her guest room that we were to share. I only waited until I heard what I assumed was her bedroom door shut before I opened the guest room door and snuck down the stairs. I said nothing to Allen when he followed me. I expected it.

He followed closely until I entered Officer Moore's kitchen. When I entered he stayed in the doorway separating it from the living room. The door to the outside was in the living room. Because I didn't enter the living room right away, he no longer could guess what I was doing. I believe that he thought I was going to go back to the church like he was.

I felt his eyes burn into my back as I picked the newspaper off the table and looked at the front page. My eyes immediately zoned in on the date. The world that I was brought to was a world that was still back in the 1800s. I felt myself smirking again; this explains why nobody at the police station could make heads or tails of my gun. This also explains the car, if this world is as the same as the world I come from as I think that means that that antique car is actually quite new in this world. Nobody recognized me as Britannian nobility because Britannia has yet to establish itself as Britannia or take over any significant amount of the world.

I opened the paper again and sit in one of the chairs at the table. Allen is about to come over and see what I'm doing when _**CRASH!**_ The house shakes. The crash and shaking made me fall off the chair before I could even get properly seated in it. Allen takes immediate action and bolts up the stairs toward the source of the commotion. I run up the stairs behind him. The only reasonable excuse I could think of at the moment was that I needed to make sure that whatever it was that caused the disturbance wasn't a threat to my existence in this world. It wasn't like I cared about these people. Not at all.

As always, my running is proved far slower than the person I'm running after and I arrive a minute behind Allen. The crash had originated from a bedroom next to Officer Moore's room. I figured the room to belong to a family member of some sort but when I ran through the door after Allen the only thing I seemed to see was a monster like the one I saw leaving the church filling the giant hole in the ceiling pointing its guns at us.

The next thing I knew, I'm pressed between Officer Moore and Allen. Allen's right arm held us against his chest as he got pushed back through the hole the monster had created earlier in the church wall. When he let go of us, my eyes widened in shock. He had caught the bullet the monster had shot in his left hand like it was nothing!

I glanced over to see how Officer Moore was handling this, and found her staring at the hand that was clutching the bullet, "You caught the bullet... But how?" she said somewhat dazedly. She must have been going into shock, I thought.

Allen answered her question with a sad smile and slapped her hand away when she reached out to touch the bullet. "You can't touch it! The bullet is made up of the Akuma's blood, it's poison to all living things. You saw what it did to your partner." Allen looked down at the fat cat he had been chasing earlier that was hiding under the arm that was holding the bullet. I had no idea how that cat got there but, I watched as the cat was covered in stars before turning to dust like Officer Moore's partner with some regret. Allen had a sad look on his face and murmured to the now disintegrated cat, "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

"Allen, what happened to my brother?" Officer Moore had started crying and had grabbed onto Allen.

Allen turned to face Officer Moore, "An akuma hides itself among humans by wearing a human corpse, that wasn't your brother, your brother was killed by the akuma some time ago."

I didn't listen to her response to this news. I was too busy watching a storm of cops enter the church with a bunch of guns aimed at this akuma thing. All the cops were lead in by the chief that was questioning me and Allen earlier. He didn't seem to notice our presence, he was too busy ordering his troops to fire on the akuma.

Allen noticed when they started firing and screamed at them to stop because the weapons would be ineffective on the akuma, but it was too late. The bullets hit the akuma and bounced harmlessly off its body. The only thing the bullets did was make the akuma interested in the cops. The akuma shot several times out of its cannons that were implanted in its body, hitting every cop. The police all stood like statues for a minute, frozen in their shocked horror, before the stars covering their bodies turned them completely black and they turned to dust.

I couldn't believe it. That one THING had taken out all of those people. Allen had said earlier that they killed to evolve and get stronger but I hadn't really thought that they killed in these kinds of numbers at once. This was just one and Allen had said that he had run across many of them. These things had the potential to be worse than the entire Britannian Empire ever was in large enough numbers. I couldn't believe it.

I found myself stumbling to my feet, though I hadn't remembered sitting down at all, and shuffling forward. I was under the impression that Allen was about to attack, but that my movement made him stop. I was a few steps away from the floating monster when it turned to look at me. I stared into its eyes again and wondered. Why did I have to end up in a world were horrible things like this happen. Why couldn't I end up in a world where someone like me had already brought an end to full-scale war? Sorrow like the kind displayed in this monster's eyes should not exist anywhere. Sorrow like the kind I see when I looked in Suzaku's eyes, the sorrow I see when I drop my guard while looking in a mirror.

If I was to be in a world like this then, then I refuse to just sit back and let things like this kill people for their own benefit! I brought my arm painlessly out of my sling and brought it up to my left eye that I had closed for a second. I brought my arm down when I opened my eyes to stare directly into the akuma's eyes, "_Lelouch Vi Britannia Commands You, Akuma, _Die_!_"


	4. The black king and the golden ball

The Black King's Ace

_by Molly Ishida_

_Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina_

Chapter 3: The Black King and the Golden Ball

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted it. I had forgotten momentarily that once my immortal code was activated, I lost my geass power. Even if I didn't have an entire code, the rule should still apply. I saw that once Allen had gotten over the shock of my just walking up to an akuma and telling it to die, he had started running forward again and was right next to me.

Allen tugged at my arm, trying to pull me away from the akuma. We were only a small distance from it when it exploded. The akuma's ashes were raining down on us and mixing with the ashes of the dead police officers. Allen wore an expression of utmost disbelief. He turned to look at me. I had to pull my arm out of his grip and snap my fingers in front of his face before he would say anything, "Y-your eye. You have a parasitic innocence weapon in your left eye!" he sort of half-stuttered, half-screamed. Shock was setting in, I suppose.

I didn't know what he was talking about. Innocence in my eye? But I did gather from his look that my eye had turned red with the geass symbol in it like it did when I had geass, so I covered it. I had to get my contacts as soon as possible before I accidentally commanded someone like I did with Euphy, "Now is not the time. We will discuss whatever it is you are talking about later. We need to get Officer Moore home and to bed." We both turned to look at Officer Moore who had finally passed out from the stress of the evening's events.

Allen nodded and seemed to calm down a little as we carried Officer Moore back to her house. I wasn't very much help with carrying her, my arm was still sore, and my sling was still on. However, Allen more than made up for it. All the while, I had to make sure I didn't look Allen directly in the eye.

Allen had been quiet the entire time we were moving Officer Moore. And he remained so when we got to our room as I rummaged through my bag for my contact case. Once I had my contact in, I pocketed the case and sat down on the bed I was going to use. I pushed my hand back through my hair and looked up at Allen. He sat looking at me from his seat on the other bed in the room.

"So, what is this innocence you spoke of? And, for the sake of sanity, I am going to assume that you weren't talking about virginity."

My question seemed to finally wake Allen up from his thoughts. "Innocence is the only thing that can kill an akuma." He began, settling back onto his bed. "All exorcists are chosen by God to wield a weapon made out of an innocence fragment." He looked at me oddly. "Those who are compatible with an innocence fragment are obligated to become an exorcist regardless of anything else, including their personal opinion on the matter." Here he looked away. "They have to because only a small number of people are compatible." At this point he lifted up his left hand and took off the covering he had over it to reveal a softly glowing green cross, "This is my anti-akuma weapon, I'm a parasitic type accommodator, too. I was born with my innocence inside me, born to fight akuma for the rest of my life. My parents abandoned me on the Christmas I was five because of it." He stopped for a moment, then continued on, his voice dull. "My left eye has a curse on it as well; I can see the tormented souls that are trapped in the akuma. The only way to free those souls is to kill the akuma with innocence. My master recently sent me to find the black order where the exorcists live so that I can officially join. Master has been training me for the last five years, since I turned ten." Again, he looked at me, eyes pleading and somehow, stern. "You need to come with me to the order so that you can join as well. If you don't, I'll have to send people back out after you once I get there."

This… gave me a lot to think about, "I understand what you are saying, but I would like a chance to think this over. I'll give you my answer in the morning. I also promise not to run off, though under one condition. If my answer is no, you must let me leave town before you head on."

He nodded his head in agreement before taking off his vest, bow-tie, and shoes and getting into bed. He passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow. I also removed my jacket and footwear before shutting off the light and lying down under the soft green covers of my bed.

The room was really quite nice, almost like a hotel room. It was really lucky that Officer Moore had two beds in her guest room. The dark green quilts matched the slightly worn rug and the thin curtains. I put my hands behind my head as I stared at the dull white ceiling. The moonlight shone softly, creating a glow over the ceiling above my bed. It was all really comfortable, too comfortable to be honest.

I stood up slowly and walked over to the wooden chair by the window in between the two beds me and Allen were currently occupying and sat down. Pulling the curtain back, I gazed down at the church. The structure reminded me of the church from C2's memories... Of the place she got her geass. I wonder if Nunnally would have enjoyed seeing a place like this.

I moved my chair closer to the window and stared at my reflection. I still had a bandage wrapped around my head and taped across my nose. I shifted my shoulder, remembering how I dislocated it and how I had taken the sling off. I felt no pain from my shoulder and so reached up to take the other bandages off. The bump that I had been told was on my forehead, as well as the break that was in my nose, were both completely healed. I must have retained a bit of the healing ability from the half of the code I still had. Not all of it, I knew, because C2 had managed to recover from a shot to the head in about ten minutes. It had taken me a good day or so to heal.

I sighed and took out the special colored contact from my left eye, once again turning one of my dark purple eyes red. So I had my geass back. Could it really be that, this time, it was not really geass, but this anti-akuma weapon that Allen had told me about? And if it is an anti-akuma weapon, does that mean it can no longer be used on humans?

"Oh, power of the king are you really an innocence fragment in this world?" I whispered as quietly as I could so as to not wake Allen up. As I was looking into my left eye I suddenly noticed something a bit different about it. The light red geass shape that formed around my pupil wasn't light red, but a soft gold color. I gazed into it as hard as I could, trying to spot anymore differences.

My nose was almost pushed up against the glass when something hit it and almost made me fall backwards out of the chair I was sitting in. When I had regained my balance I checked to see if Allen was still sleeping and heard nothing but light snores coming from his bed. When I glanced out the window I saw a floating gold ball with tiny wings and a lighter gold cross sort of pattern grinning at me with teeth as pointed as fangs.

I felt my eyes widen, what sort of creature was this? As I stared the tiny creature seemed to point one of its wings at Allen's sleeping form on the bed. I gave the creature a confused look and waited to see what it would do. It opened it mouth to show him sitting on Allen's head, then skipped to another video of it coming out of the fat cats body after the cat had disintegrated. I relaxed; this must be the thing that Allen had been chasing the cat for. Judging by its capabilities it must be a projector with some sort of artificial intelligence so that it could follow it's owner and never get lost. Thinking this, I opened the window and let the little machine in the room.

The little thing flew into the room and perched on my lap as soon as I had reseated myself. I stared at it and it seemed to be staring back at me, "You have to be quiet because Allen is sleeping. I don't suppose you have a name, do you?"

The creature opened his mouth and out of it came a quieted version of Allen yelling, "Timcanpy get back here! Don't play with the cat it could eat…" The rest was cut off by static, probably when this Timcanpy thing got eaten by the cat.

I couldn't help but chuckle a bit under my breath, "You should really learn to listen you know." I petted Timcanpy and noticed that he had tiny little horns on his head and four tiny legs as well. He also had a long tail with a shape at the bottom that looked like a flame with a swirl in the middle. I hissed, the thing had nibbled on my finger a little bit to show it's affection and had broken skin with his pointed teeth. I promptly stopped petting it and sucked on my finger.

I realized something very important in that moment; I had figured out earlier that it was still the 1800s in this world, so how could they have something as advanced as this? Maybe the whole world didn't have this technology, but the order that Allen was talking about did? This leant everything a new perspective if they were indeed more advanced than the rest of the world.

Speaking of the world, "Timcanpy can you bring up a map of the world?" At my request Timcanpy opened his mouth again to reveal a holographic map of the world. I looked to where Britannia was located in my world and saw a country labeled as the United States of America as well as a country labeled Canada. I looked over to where the homeland used to be before Napoleon forced us to move the homeland to the colonies in the new world. I looked across the Atlantic Ocean and found that Great Britain was still there. This must be a timeline where the Britannian Empire hadn't been created at all; it had been allowed to stay Great Britain.

I knew that Britannia hadn't taken over any of the world and that my father wasn't here, but I had never figured that Britannia hadn't existed at all in this world, "Timcanpy can you show me which country we're in now?" Timcanpy's map zoomed in to show Great Britain, "Well, I can't exactly say I wasn't expecting it. It was either that or Japan." Timcanpy closed his mouth, cutting off the image, and flew up to my head. Once on my head, he curled into a ball and seemed to doze off. Well it seems I've found someone who likes me.

I gazed at the reflection of Timcanpy on my head and thought of the pros and cons of going with Allen to this order. I also thought of those monsters called akuma. No matter what I do in this world, I refuse to stop killing those akuma. Even if I didn't go with Allen to the order and spent the rest of my time in this world on the run from them, I would still be going after the same things they were.

Being on the run wasn't really new to me. If I had to, I could again don the Zero mask and easily stay in hiding with the money I had. If my geass did indeed stop working on humans, I had no way to protect myself from a physical fight except my gun. This order appeared to have more advanced technology than the rest of the world. I would be tied down to them as soon as I got there, forced to follow the orders of a superior. It would give me people to work with. It wasn't like a terrorist group like the one I took control of; it was probably run by the government. It would give me a place to live and possibly some answers to questions I have about this world and the akuma that I wouldn't be able to figure out right away without help. I could always leave if I ever changed my mind and go on the run then.

I could find out more about Allen. The other exorcists always had the possibility of being as interesting as him as well. But was the mystery really worth it to chance something like this? I wish I could see a real exorcist from the order to help make my decision.

That gave me an idea, "Timcanpy wake up. Can you show me the last tape you have with Allen's old master in it?" As sleepy as Timcanpy was acting he seemed to perk up a bit at the mention of his master.

Timcanpy floated down to my lap and opened his mouth to reveal a scene where Allen was backing away on the ground from a tall man with long red hair and a hat, wearing a coat that looked similar to my school coat, holding a mallet. The red haired man told Allen where to find the order and that he sent a letter to the person in charge named Kamui. That he was going away and leaving Timcanpy with Allen. I watched in fascination as he hit Allen with the mallet and left. As he turned to leave I saw that he was also wearing half a white mask and glasses. He had a gun in his pocket and grabbed what looked like a coffin before he left.

The video cut off after that and I stood up and brought Timcanpy back to bed with me and set him on the pillow next to my head as I lay down. I had made a decision. I had to see what this order was like at the very least. The people I had seen from there, so far, were too interesting. The chance of such valuable information too tempting, to pass up. I also seemed to have developed a liking for a certain golden ball that seems to like me as well.

Good or bad my decision was sure to be interesting. That was the last thought I had before drifting off to sleep.


	5. the black king at the black order

Disclaimer: I don't own Code geass or -man I just fuck with the characters ^^'

AN: I gave Lulu a mental disorder in my story and have been giving a lot of symptoms already. I know I got all of them. If you can guess what it is I will write you a lemon one-shot with any yaoi couple of your choice from any anime that I know. I will warn you though that when I do lemons I'm very detailed. ^^

The Black King's Ace

_By Molly Ishida_

_Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina_

Chapter 4: The Black King at the Black Order

The light was burning my eyes. I knew logically that it was the sun burning through my eyelids, but I kept seeing fire. I had dreamed last night. Dreams filled with people screaming and dead bodies. I dreamed I was carrying Nunnally on my back again, walking through a field of bodies, casualties from the war, having to stay cheerful and tell her we were going through a garbage dump.

I dreamed my dear sister, Euphy, was shooting the Japanese with a machine gun, splattered with blood, the people yelling for me to kill her. I saw Suzaku pointing his gun at me with a look of absolute loathing on his face, Kallen standing aside without knowing what to do. I saw ten-year-old Suzaku crying and having to be comforted by my poor blind sister. I again felt Suzaku hold me down in front of my father, forcing me to forget. I felt again Suzaku pounding into me the night before my death, working off his pain and anger.

The last thing I saw before I woke up was purple flames. I was again in the casino where the Black Knights were attacking to try and get me back to being Zero. All the people being burned by the Britannian soldiers, both the Japanese and the Britannians alike, so there would be no witnesses to the slaughtering. I heard the woman screaming as they burned her alive with the purple flame, not bothering to check for survivors.

Then, I woke up to blinding red light coming from beneath my eyelids. I had been lying like this for a long time already, trying to calm my nerves. I had heard both Allen and Officer Moore get up and go downstairs already. I didn't want to open my eyes. What if I opened my eyes and was still surrounded by fire? I knew in my mind that I wouldn't be. But one couldn't shake feeling of dread off like that, could they?

I was so busy replaying my... (could they really be called dreams or nightmares if they really happened at some point?), that I didn't hear footsteps come back into the room. I was startled out of my thoughts by a hand shaking my shoulder. The first thought I had was that a Britannian soldier had caught me unaware and was going to either kill me or take me as a hostage. I bolted upright and prepared to use my geass. I spun around and looked my attacker in the eye and commanded, _"Release me!"_

Only to be met with a scared looking Allen who still had a hand on my shoulder and clearly not under my geass power as he should be. As I watched, he slowly removed his hand from my shoulder and backed away a couple steps, "I-I'm sorry! I didn't mean to bother you, honest! Breakfast is ready and we both need to leave town early today!"

I softened my gaze, Allen didn't mean to scare me after all, and no normal person would have that severe of a reaction. Since my geass didn't work on Allen, it must mean that it won't work on any humans anymore. I sighed, that means it probably is innocence now, especially considering the change of color as well. I looked down in my lap. I now had no weapon against the most evil things in existence, humans, which they didn't have as well.

I felt a tug on my right ear. When I glanced out of my peripheral vision I saw Timcanpy nipping at my ear with his disproportionate teeth. Allen seemed to think that Timcanpy had hurt me and started trying to get him away. When Timcanpy refused to leave and just landed on my head. I couldn't hold back my chuckle of amusement. "He's not hurting me! We bonded a little last night; he's probably just trying to cheer me up."

Allen seemed a bit surprised, "You mean he didn't draw blood? He always bites people, unless he really likes them. He still bites me sometimes!"

My amusement had faded, but I maintained my smile. I knew that he would start asking me whether I was going with him or not to the order and I wasn't in the mood this morning. "Well you said breakfast was ready did you not? We shouldn't keep Officer Moore waiting. I'm anxious to see how she is fairing this morning. She seemed quite devastated last night." I really didn't care about her; she struck me as weak and unobservant.

Allen suddenly grew more serious at this change of topic. As we headed down the stairs to the kitchen, he murmured "She seems to be okay now, but it was a devastating loss for her."

I didn't have a chance to reply as we had made it to the kitchen where Officer Moore had set out plates for us and was just sitting down to her own as well. The table was small, able to fit the three of us but unable to fit any more comfortably. It seemed that she had brought some of the white flowers she had planted out front in and put them in a tall white vase in the center of the light brown table. She seemed to notice me looking them over when she glanced up from her food. "I brought them in this morning, to honor my brother Marc."

Her eyes were still a bit red and puffy from crying. I almost felt a bit of pity for the girl who hadn't even noticed that her brother was a corpse for the last month. I looked down at my food and noticed she had made pancakes, from scratch from the looks of it. She was probably trying to keep herself busy so she didn't think about her brother so much.

She took everyone off guard when she turned to Allen, "Are you sure that Marc and my sister are okay now?" She asked it in a panicked tone that almost made me wince.

Allen wasn't fazed and gave her a soft smile. "Of course. Lelouch set your sister's soul free when he killed that akuma last night. I saw her with my cursed eye. She was smiling." Then, he turned to me. "Speaking of what Lelouch did last night, have you decided if you're going to come to the order with me?"

I stifled a sigh and shot a smile at Allen. I knew this was coming. "Yes, I've decided to accompany you to this order. I don't much fancy a life on the run. I was considering it though, until I had a talk with Timcanpy. "I was surprised when Allen merely gave me an interesting look and didn't question my response.

After breakfast, we said our goodbyes to Officer Moore and found a carriage that I hired to take us to the order. I offered to pay for it since Allen didn't have much money. He barely had enough for a meal, much less an expensive carriage ride that had to take us two towns over.

We settled into the carriage facing the same way on opposite sides of the seat so that we both had a window to look out. I leaned my head against the cool glass, hazily watching the old buildings roll by, content to sleep through the rest of our trip. At the rate we were traveling we wouldn't get to the order until it got dark.

I was almost asleep when Allen shook my shoulder. I turned to look at him through half-lidded eyes. When I saw how serious Allen looked I sat up straight and forced myself completely awake. "You need to tell me where you got that gun that's in your bag. I've never seen anything that advanced. Your cloths I can put down to eccentric tastes, including that outfit that looks like it was made for… you know… bedroom purposes, but-"

I cut him off. "A sex outfit?" I thought fast, mentally going over all my clothes that were in my bag before I realized what he was talking about. "You mean the dark blue jump suit with the yellow lining?" I asked, and he nodded, still blushing from having to bring it up. I started laughing. "That outfit was part of my old job. I had to look impressive while still being able to move freely. The suit is completed by the black cape with the yellow lining and the mask that can be brought over the back of the head."

Allen seemed to have recovered from his embarrassment and determined to press on with his questions, "That still doesn't explain the gun. You also lied to the cops about why you were in that church to begin with. Also what kind of job did you do that you had to look impressive and have mobility when you aren't very strong or fast, judging by the incidents yesterday. Where did you get all that money? And why do you have a coat that looks like an exorcist general's coat without the rose cross?"

I sighed. of course these things would come up when I'm half asleep. At least I came up with a story for the things in my bag already when I was at the police station, "A very close friend of mine is an inventor. Since she's female she can't get her inventions out to the public, so she sells them in back alleys to extremely rich people. She can't sell them herself in person because she doesn't want them all to know she's a girl, and she's also not very good at talking to people. It was my job to handle the sales. She hired me because I'm good at persuading people and am familiar with how upper-class citizens think. I wear the mask because I used to belong to a Noble family and didn't want to be recognized. I got all my money as parting gift when I was disowned and added onto it with the sales my employer made. I was in the church last night because a couple potential clients went missing there and I wanted to see what had happened to them. I tripped in the church and broke my nose, my shoulder got dislocated when I tried to catch myself. I must have hit my head hard enough to knock myself out because I woke up to the sound of Officer Moore's partner screaming. I didn't want to tell the cops why I was there, because, they would have found out about the weapons inventor I work for and our slightly-illegal sales. Does that answer all your questions?"

Allen's eyes had widened in amazement at my slightly long-winded answer to his questions. "How old are you? You look a little young to be an arms dealer."

"I'm eighteen." I looked him right in the eye so he wouldn't think I was lying about my age.

"What's your boss's name? When did you start working for her?"

"Her name is Rakshata. I started working for her about two years ago." I mentally smirked when I used Rakshata's name as the weapons inventor. If she was born in this world she would probably be doing exactly what I just used her for. That and backing women's rights movements.

I decided to see what else I could find out about my new acquaintance and his so-called cursed eye he kept talking about the night before. "Allen, last night you were talking about a cursed eye that you had, your left eye right? I was wondering how it got that way, if you don't mind my asking."

He turned to face me and pulled the hair that hung over the top of the huge scar to reveal a pentagram. He was smiling a sad little smile at me as he answered, "The curse is a punishment from my foster father Mana for something that I did when he died."

After he said that he turned away to watch the scenery out the carriage window. I turned to my own window but wasn't paying attention to what was going on outside. I was thinking on what Allen just told me. I still wasn't sure that his eye was cursed at all. He hadn't really told me much of anything and I wasn't about to press him further after seeing his reaction. The scar that I saw was real enough anyway. I'd seen plenty of those in my lifetime to tell just by looking at it that it was real. The pain behind it was definitely real in any case.

My thoughts kept circling the same information until I fell asleep with my head resting on the window. I was so tired that I didn't have any dreams for once, or if I did I don't remember them.

I was jarred awake when the carriage came to a stop and my head resting on the window slammed into the front wall of the carriage. Allen glanced over to me with a concerned look plastered on his face, which I waved off with my right hand while my left was rubbing my head. After Allen left the carriage I grabbed my bag and followed after. The man driving the carriage sped off as fast as he could make his carriage go as soon as he saw that we had both gotten off. When I looked at our destination I had no trouble guessing why.

The building in front of us was on an extremely tall, completely vertical, man-made hill. The building itself was a circular tower that was entirely black in the daylight and extremely foreboding. The thing that bothered me the most though was the fact that the only entrance I could see was on top of the hill. There was no way in at the bottom so you had to climb.

Allen seemed to have noticed the same thing, but didn't seem at all put off by it. He carried his small suitcase in his left hand and started climbing with the other. I tried to follow but only got up a few feet before I hit myself with my bag and fell off into the hard dirt below. Allen heard me fall when I let out a (very dignified) scream of surprise. He quickly climbed down from where he was (a good 10 feet above where I had fallen from) and was leaning over me with a worried expression on his face.

"Are you okay?" I barely heard him, I was so winded. I nodded my head a bit in response before just laying there a moment to get my breath back.

When I got my second wind I picked my head up, looked Allen in the eye and said. "I cannot climb up there."

All was silent for a few seconds before Allen started snickering, apparently amused with my lack of physical prowess, while I scowled at him. With an IQ as high as mine who needs things like strength, speed, stamina, and all that?

When he got control of himself again, he offered to carry me up the hill if I carried the bags. Now, as a former Emperor and as a human being who loathes asking for help in any form, this idea repulsed me, but seeing as there appeared to be no other way up, I sighed and agreed.

Allen carried me up piggyback style. I had my bag on my back, and Allen's suitcase tied onto my bag with two of Allen's ribbon bowties. My arms were roped around his neck and I was squeezing as tight as I could without choking him. My legs were similarly wrapped around his waist. Truthfully, wall climbing and rock climbing of any sort scares me senseless. I got through all the little rock climbing I had to do when I was little and traveling with Suzaku during the war because Suzaku was there. I knew he would never hurt me and that he would be there if I ever fell. With Allen, I knew he was a good guy, but, he wasn't Suzaku, and there wasn't the same amount of trust between us. I had just met him yesterday, and couldn't be sure if he would just leave me to die.

I don't know why things like this scared me so much. I haven't been scared of dying for quite some time. In fact I've never been scared of dying since I came to Japan with Nunnally, because I knew that if I died, Suzaku would take care of her. I did the only thing I knew would help in this situation, and pictured a little Suzaku helping me up a tiny rock wall with a little Nunnally sitting in the grass behind him, still blind to the world.

I stayed locked in this vision as Allen climbed the vertical wall. Even though it must have taken Allen a long time to get to the top, it seemed like mere seconds to me. When we got to the top and Allen had pulled us both onto flat ground, I rolled off of him and stood up. Allen was catching his breath while I untied his suitcase from my bag and shoved his ribbon back in his suitcase.

I pretended to stare straight at the looming building in front of us while watching the area around us for people or cameras. All I saw was a bunch of things that looked like black versions of Timcanpy. I was about to blow them off and check the barely visible roof of the building for the eyes I felt watching us, when I remembered the things Timcanpy was capable of and hid my smirk. Of course the people in the building would be watching us through their machines. If you didn't know what they could do, someone could easily pass the black ones off as bats.

Once Allen was breathing properly, I decided it was time to speak to these people. After all, they were supposed to be allies of Allen's. I turned to look directly at the nearest bat machine and used my Zero voice when I spoke to them. "My name is Lelouch vi Britannia, and my companion is Allen Walker. We have come to join your order."

Allen was looking at me as if I had grown a third head. There was a long pause before a young man's voice responded, "Please approach the front door for a scan before we let you in to make sure you're not an akuma."

Allen gave a sigh of relief as he followed me to approach the double doors in front of us. The doors were twice as tall as me and had a convex carving of a face on it. When we got to about two feet before the door the door scared both me and Allen when the face came to life and shot a red beam at us through his eyes.

It started its scan with me. As it scanned it was mumbling to the bat machine that was hovering next to the door, "huuuuummm… yes… fine… oh! What's this? Not akuma, but very odd. Safe, in any case. Next!" At that, he turned his scan on Allen. It wasn't long before he started screaming and crying, "AKUMA! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"


	6. Exocists

Author's note: So someone figured out the disease but disabled their private messaging system, so the second person to guess right and have a way for me to tell them gets a lemon oneshot with very few limiters

The Black King's Ace

By Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 6: Exorcists

When the door started shouting its akuma warning, I glanced to all sides, searching for the abomination. After a few panicked seconds, I realized that the door was talking about Allen, as I heard Allen trying to explain to the door about his curse. I figured that the door had mistaken Allen's curse as some sort of sign that he was an akuma. I almost would have laughed at the door mistaking someone like Allen for a beast if it wasn't for the fact that I sensed a malevolent aura heading for us.

I turned to try and warn the still protesting Allen of our danger, but before I could, Allen was attacked. Allen seemed to have sensed him at the last minute, and was able to activate his innocence in time to block. It was the first time I had seen Allen's innocence activated, and I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around how it was possible. His arm turned silver and became twice as big as the rest of his body with sharp talons on the end. The joint that connected the arm to the rest of the body was engulfed in what appeared to be green flames.

Though I was surprised greatly by the sight of Allen's arm, I kept a straight face as I turned to face our attacker. Our attacker surprised me quite a bit as well. He appeared to be a samurai, with long flowing blue-black hair and sharp critical eyes. His glare was almost as sharp as the kantana that he wielded, the blade glinting pure black. Even as Allen continued to express his innocence, the samurai ran his fingers along the edge of the blade, turning the edge a blinding silver while calling out, "Mugen, activate!"

I was able to gather that his kantana was his innocence, like Allen's was his arm, and mine apparently my left eye. As the samurai attacked Allen, it was clear who was more experienced, as Mugen sliced Allen's arm almost in half the long way and Allen screamed in pain. The samurai didn't even try to attack me, thankfully, probably thinking I was the "akuma's" hostage or something. I was able to hear a voice coming from the robotic bats yelling at the samurai to stop attacking Allen, but neither Allen nor the samurai seemed to hear it. I turned to face the bat head on and said in my Zero voice, "It seems that they can't hear you, it might be a good idea to try something else."

I had to hold myself back from adding an insult to the end. I mean, what kind of imbecile would think Allen was an akuma based on a DOOR'S opinion? It seems that my suggestion took effect, because a girl with green-tinted pigtails came out the door when Allen and the samurai weren't paying attention and hit the samurai in the head with a clipboard to get him to stop attacking. The girl was also wearing an outfit similar to the samurai's only with a skirt and I took it to be the exorcist uniform Allen had told me about.

The girl seemed to have finally noticed me and Allen's staring and decided to make introductions. "Hi! My name's Lenalee Lee and this is Kanda. We're both exorcists with the Black Order. Sorry for the mix-up, Allen and Lelouch, was it?"

Allen's hand was in too much pain after he deactivated it to shake hands so that happy job was left up to me. "Yes, that is correct. I am Lelouch Vi Britannia and my companion is Allen Walker. We have both come to join the order as exorcists, however, my training as an exorcist, as it stands now, is none at all."

Lenalee put on a thoughtful face before replying, "I see. Well let me bring you to my brother. He's the chief of the science department. Follow me and don't touch anything please."

As the three of us followed Lenalee into the building, I was watching Kanda out of the corner of my eye. He had been permanently scowling since Lenalee had appeared and the scowl only deepened when I mentioned that Allen and I were to join the order. He seemed to be looking for a way to sneak away from us as soon as we entered the building. I wanted to know more about the Japan of this world since my arrival and now seemed the perfect time to see whether this Kanda person would be of any help what-so-ever. I made sure I walked behind Kanda the entire way so that I would see the second he tried to get away and would be able to inform this Lenalee person, who, judging from the display earlier, would be able to keep him from leaving.

We walked past some suspicious looking labs on our way to this Kamui person's office, which everyone besides Lenalee and me seemed to shuffle away from unconsciously. I raised an eyebrow when the heard screams coming from behind the doors and Lenalee's smile seemed to widen. When we got to the door marked as Komui's office Allen seemed to drift to the back of the group with me, probably nervous about meeting this scientist after seeing the labs. Lenalee went in first before coming right out again with a young man.

The young man was wearing a white jacket that looked like a mix between a lab coat and a military jacket. He had black hair that was covered by a white beret. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses he was sporting an evil looking grin. Lenalee decided to make the introductions, "This is my older brother Komui, the chief of the science department and our immediate superior. Brother, this is Allen Walker and Lelouch Vi Britannia, our new exorcists." She turned to address Allen specifically, "Komui saw that you got injured Allen, and decided to fix your arm and let the two of you meet Hevlaska before you officially register."

Both Allen and I shook hands with a still grinning Komui before fallowing Lenalee again through the hallways. We went through only a few corridors before we reached what I immediately took to be the center of the building. There was a circular hole in the middle of the floor with railings to keep people from falling. Doors surrounded the walls with hallways exiting between them. In the middle of this hole was a floating metal platform that I took to work like an elevator to get to the lower levels.

Komui took the lead, hopping onto the platform and headed toward the controls. Allen soon followed, then Kanda after a glare from Lenalee, then Lenalee herself. After everyone had gotten on the platform, but me they turned and stared (or glared in Kanda's case) at me in anticipation, just waiting for me to get on.

The truth was, that, to get on the platform you had to stand on the railing and jump down a bit. All the others had climbed the railing easily and casually jumped down like it was no big deal. I, on the other hand just knew this was going to end badly were I was concerned, even if I did manage it, it wouldn't look as good as when the exercise freaks did it.

Trying to ignore the others' gazes I walked up to the railing and clumsily managed to get myself on it. When I was standing on it I made the idiotic mistake of looking to the side and seeing how far down the hole actually went; I couldn't see the bottom. I tried to swallow my fear and jumped, only to land awkwardly and crash into Kanda. Lenalee and Allen looked like they were suppressing laughter and Kanda looked like he was trying not to kill me. I brushed off their reactions and schooled me face into my usual passive face, inwardly cursing myself for being such a moronic coward.

The platform landed in a hallway with more doors. Komui lead the way to the first door on the right. The door was made of metal and had a sign posted on it that read: Exam Room. My first glance of the room made me think that it was like any other doctor's exam room I had been in, it wasn't until I took my second glance that I became concerned. Underneath a few of the tables that were lying against the walls were drills and other mining tools.

Komui made Allen hold out his left arm so he could check it. Allen seemed rather reluctant to bring any attention to it, but eventually complied. Allen's arm had what looked like a scar running almost all the way up his arm and the hand was spastically twitching in pain, showing that the nerves in at least his hand had been severely damaged. When Lenalee saw, she immediately swung around and hit Kanda in the head with her clipboard again for causing the injury. Kanda just glared in the opposite direction of us all and tried to ignore the bump forming on his head.

I stared impassively at the obviously pained limb and clenched my teeth. This never would have happened if Komui had run his branch of organization in a more organized and civilized manner. This Supervisor seemed like he had no idea how to go about his job properly. He also seemed slightly deranged if the way he just pulled a giant drill out of nowhere and started to drill into the gash on Allen's arm was any indication.

When Allen's surgery was over he had transformed his arm back to it's semi-normal state and had it in a sling with strict orders from Komui not to activate it for a couple of days. We left the room and headed back into the maze of hallways, Komui once again leading the way.

However Komui surprised me by addressing me directly, "Allen has been telling me on our way down how you stumbled upon your innocence in a church on your way here. I was aware of the possibility of innocence there and was preparing Kanda to investigate, however it seems Kanda owes you for taking care of the mission for him. The innocence in the church must have called you to it for you to be in such a good position to get ahold of it."

This made me think. I could have landed anywhere in this entire world and I ended up falling right on top of a power, that, according to what I've gathered so far, belongs solely to me. I must remember not to underestimate the power of these innocence fragments. My theory is that the innocence fragment in my eye must have called me here from C's world. I guess that meant that, for whatever reason I was meant to be with these people, in this world, for however long this lasts.


	7. Hevlaska and beginings

The Black King's Ace

By Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 7: Hevlaska and Unexpected Visitors

After my little chat with Komui, we continued walking until we got to a huge metal basement room. There was a nook up in the wall where a bunch of men sat with their faces hidden in shadow. In the middle of the room was another levitating platform. Its purpose seemed to be to get up to a metal bridge-like structure that spanned the center of the room.

As the group was heading toward the platform, a flash of red came running in through the doorway after us. The whole group paused to let the flash catch up to us. When the person finally slowed down I could see that it was another male around my age. He was wearing the exorcist coat only it ended about mid-thigh instead of below the knee like Kanda's. He had white pants with tall black leather boots and a weapons pouch that seemed to be holding a small hammer that I sincerely hoped wasn't his innocence. A bright orange scarf was wrapped around his neck and his bright red hair was spiked, held back with a green-and-black head-band. His most striking feature, however, was his vibrant green eye that seemed to tell you that it knew things you couldn't even imagine. His other eye was covered by a black eye patch. The eye patch more than anything else about him made me distrust him, for all I know he could be hiding some form of geass under it just like the knight of one.

As the redhead was catching his breath, an old man came into the room behind him. The old man wore an impassive face, but his eyes found mine the second he walked into the room and seemed to just scream that he distrusted me. The old man was also wearing an exorcist coat that went down to the floor. He was mostly bald with only a blond ponytail of hair standing up on his head. He had dark circles around his eyes that gave him the distinct look of a panda. His hands were held in his sleeves in front of his chest, but, when he moved, I managed to catch a glint of silver.

Since I was walking at the back of the group this whole time, I was the closest to the two people who had just came in and so was the first victim when the redhead decided he needed to introduce himself. He grabbed my hand and shook it extremely energetically; erasing the smirk I had dawned on seeing the suspicion in the old man's eyes. "Hello! I'm Lavi the Jr Bookman! I heard that we got some new members, I would have been to meet you sooner but I was busy in the library. I've been looking all over for you guys!"

I tried to pry my hand away, but his grip was really tight. When he finally loosened it enough to slip out of his unwanted handshake, I tried to casually wipe my hand on my pants while I introduced myself, "I am Lelouch Vi Britannia and over there is Allen Walker. We are indeed here to join the order as exorcists."

The old man reached out to shake my hand as well, giving me a clear view of what caused the glint of silver earlier. All of his fingertips had silver cones covering them, it gave the appearance that he had pointy thimbles on all his fingers, only the thimbles didn't have holes. Unlike Lavi, he calmly held his hand out to be shaken saying, "It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. Vi Britannia, my name is Bookman. I'm sure you will help the order greatly with your services."

I put on a fake smile as I replied," You can call me Lelouch. I will be sure to try my best."

Allen walked up to Bookman and Lavi and proceeded to introduce himself to the new arrivals while I slowly drifted back toward Kanda, Komui, and Lenalee. Lavi saw me drifting back and his eye narrowed with suspicion. Eventually he turned his attention back on Allen and seemed to become riveted. When he was listening to Allen his eye seemed to shine with a light that Suzaku's seemed to take when gazing at a particularly cute kitten.

Bookman interrupted whatever tirade Allen seemed to be on to ask a question directed at the both of us. "How did you manage to end up here of all places with your innocence?"

At the question all three of the others shuffled a step closer and seemed more alert. Allen explained that his master had sent him and told the others that I was an undercover arms dealer that had met up with him while searching for a dead client. He also went on to describe exactly what had happened in the church.

At hearing that I was an undercover arms dealer every eye in the room stared at me, I simply kept my attention focused on Allen while keeping an impassive face. When hearing about this General Cross that had apparently been Allen's teacher, they were highly interested. Apparently General Cross hadn't been heard from in years.

When the story was told, Komui lead the whole group onto the platform, which, thankfully, had an opening in the side closest to the bridge so that I didn't have to try and hop the damn railing again. We all filed out on the bridge and a huge ghost-like woman floated out of the shadows toward us.

The shock of seeing someone like that topped my list of the most shocking things I'd ever seen, right ahead of walking in on C2 and Kallen making out in my room the first time. I could feel my eyes widening involuntarily at the sight and my mouth drop open. As surprised as I was, though, I didn't feel any dangerous aura coming from her and so I didn't feel threatened in the least bit. Because I didn't feel threatened I was able to get a hold of my facial features in short order.

Everyone except Allen was able to keep their composure as Allen was picked up by one of the ghost's tentacles and brought up near her face. Allen was panicking and trying to activate his innocence even though he was still affected by the numbing agents used on his injured arm. He managed to invoke it but his scream of pain as he did rang in my ears for days after. Komui managed to yell over Allen's screaming that the ghost was named Hevlaska and that she was a friend who just wanted to look at Allen's innocence. However, when Allen invoked his innocence, it was the same red color it was when non-activated, only now it was bigger and wrapped in bandages. It was twitching in pain from being so forcefully activated. Hearing Komui, Allen was able to deactivate his arm and eventually calm down.

Hevlaska brought Allen toward her until their foreheads touched and began counting up in a random sequence of numbers. As she was doing this I heard Komui mumbling to Lavi who was standing next to me, "Hmm, that's interesting. With the amount of numbing agent I put in Allen's arm, he shouldn't be able to move it, much less activate his innocence like that."

Lavi became much more serious at that and I mentally smirked. I was right, Lavi is hiding something, his happy-go-lucky act from earlier was just that, an act. Lenalee and Kanda seemed to hear Komui's mumbling as well and I could almost sense them paying more attention. I figured it would be best for the time being if I pretended not to hear what Komui said and tuned back into what was going on with Allen.

Hevlaska seemed to have reached a conclusion and set Allen back down on the bridge to my right saying, "Your sink ratio with your innocence is 83%. The lower your sink rate the more difficult it is to activate your weapon. I apologize for scaring you, but the only way to get an accurate reading is through touch. One day when the world is covered in darkness your innocence will produce a weapon to destroy time."

Now this little statement caused an extremely jovial reaction from Komui, although just judging by the short time I've known him almost everything seemed to cause him happiness. I've yet to decide how much of that he fakes. So Komui practically yells, "Well that's quite interesting, Hevlaska's prophesies may be cryptic but they're always true." He was practically squealing when he turned to me, "Your turn, Lelouch!"

Now, when Allen had gotten his prophesy, it made me see yet again that something was definitely different about him and that I should keep a closer eye on him. Everyone was looking at him with a different tint in their expression than they had worn before they had seen and heard Allen's interaction with Hevlaska. At Komui exclamation everyone turned expectantly in my direction. I now knew what to expect and gently closed my eyes as Hevlaska wrapped her tentacles around me and lifted me into the air.

The tentacles were cold and the cold seemed to seep through my cloths and under my skin. When Hevlaska put her forehead against mine it almost felt as if a second consciousness was swiftly darting about the inside of my body and mind. Distantly I could hear Hevlaska as she counted up my number the way she had for Allen. I felt like I was walking through a fog, then, just as suddenly as the fog came over me I felt it dissipating as my feet once again hit the hard metal of the bridge.

Hevlaska leaned down and stared directly into my eyes as she delivered the news of the outcome of her probing, and I suddenly felt very bare and very conscious of the other people in the room's eye's all looking at me. I could now even feel the glares from the men in the shadows like I couldn't before, "Lelouch Vi Britannia, your sink rate is 90%. Even though you have just formed a parasitic bond with your innocence your sink level is already almost that of a general. The only possible way for this to occur is if you had experience with a power similar to the one you possess now in the past." That caused a gasp from Allen and a sharp look from Kanda, "You have already fulfilled your prophesy, destroyer of worlds, but you have one more to destroy."

At this Hevlaska's face took on a pained look and her centipede-like body stiffened, she managed to gasp out, "Connecting with your innocence seems to have opened a portal of some kind. I don't know…" before she froze in place.

I felt a presence behind me but continued to face the now frozen Hevlaska, even as I felt all the others turn around and Kanda and Lavi pull out their weapons. I knew who it was even before I heard her voice call out to me, "Big brother!"


	8. truth revealed

**Author's note**: So this chapter was really hard for me to write for some reason which is why it took so long even with motivation from the wonderful reviews that I got. I thought that you might be interested in knowing that this was the scene that swam through my head for about a month before I decided to actually write this story and I was really excited to finally get it out, however hard that eventually turned out to be. I hope you enjoy! Please also be on the look out for the lemon oneshot I'm writing for monkeydluffynaruto who figured out Lelouch's disorder. The oneshot is with Kanda and Allen and is called Desk Supplies! For those who weren't sure Lelouch has PTSD. Poor Lulu

The Black King's Ace

By Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 8: Truth Revealed

"Big brother, is that really you!"

I closed my eyes at the soothingly familiar voice before turning around slowly. I was aware that every eye in the room was on me, and that Kanda and Lavi had slightly relaxed their fighting stances. Even with all those eyes on me, I was unable to control my emotions as I stared into the eyes of my sister.

She looked impossibly older. I had only seen her last about two days ago, but she had an air of maturity that had not been there before. Her appearance itself hadn't changed all that much, but the aura she gave off felt a bit different, like not seeing a classmate for the summer and when you met them again in the fall, only for the interaction to change and feel different for all the experiences you had missed seeing.

Nunnally's hair still fell in waves to her waist. She was wearing one of her customary pink frilly dresses, and sitting in her intricately carved pink wheelchair. However, there were two things about the sight before me that sent cold chills up and down my spine.

The first one was that I couldn't see the bottom half of her legs but could see the room behind her. She was fuzzy, like a television gets when the picture doesn't come in quite right. She looked like a bad hologram without the projector.

The second thing that scared me the most was Nunnally's eyes. Her right eye was the same wonderful blue color it had always been, but her left eye looked as mine had for the last two years, bright red with the familiar geass symbol in it that resembled a bird in flight.

I couldn't restrain myself any longer and ran forward calling her name, "Nunnally!"

I fell down on my knees in front of her and stretched my arm out toward her. She yelled my name as well and stretched her hand out to meet mine, "Lelouch!"

When our hands met, mine passed right through hers, and I wanted to cry. She was like a ghost, and in that second I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that even though I survived, I was never going to touch my sister again. One of the only things I'd ever cared about with all my heart and I would never truly be in the same world as her again, even under false pretenses as we had for the past two years. I knew when I scheduled my death, that I would be separated from her forever and convinced myself that I wouldn't be able to feel anything after I died and therefore it wouldn't matter. I guess that when I lived, I subconsciously convinced myself that as long as I would live, I would see her again. This was like losing her all over again, without the comfort of death to add a light to the end of the dark tunnel.

I tried to push my feelings back and question Nunnally, while she just pulled her hand back gently with a sad smile before donning a resigned look. "Nunnally what are you doing here and why do you have geass?"

Nunnally smiled softly and said, "I can show you."

Nunnally wavered and in her place was a familiar parade of death. The sides of the street were thronged with people, held back by geassed guards carrying machine guns. At the very front and very back of this short parade were army escort vehicles there to protect the evil emperor of the world. Even though I couldn't see into the vehicles, I knew everybody in them were geassed as well. Behind the lead vehicle were two small moving platforms rolling side-by-side. On the platforms were wooden polls carrying the emperor's prisoners to their non-existent execution. Even though I couldn't see their beat up faces, I knew them to be members of the black knights; Kallen, Tamaki, Kaguya, Oogi, and others. Behind the prisoners was a giant two-level float with a ramp connecting the two levels. On the bottom level sat a figure in red, tied to the floor in chains, and on the top level sat the emperor himself in his white throne, flanked by his faithful guard, orange-boy.

The view suddenly went from viewing the scene from a distance to a close-up of the girl in red. It was easy to see now that this figure was a sad and angry Nunnally, staring up at the throne with eyes that were a more normal striking blue color.

At the new view, my eyes went wide with fear and I threw my useless pride to the wind and begged, "Please, Nunnally! Don't make me watch this day! I already gave everything. Don't do this to me..." The last part was said in a pleading whisper, but I knew it was useless as the view slowly climbed the ramp toward the upper level.

Nunnally confirmed my fear in a strong and determined voice, "You need to see this and know how we all felt about it to fully understand what happened in your long absence."

I held my breath as the view panned up and settled on the face of the emperor who destroyed the world. My face. I was standing now, giving a speech. It was obvious I was some kind of royalty by that point and I heard gasps come from behind me at the revelation, the first noises made by our audience since the beginning.

I ignored them in favor of listening to Nunnally and watching my unmoving face, "I was so mad at you brother. I think, in that moment, I actually hated you, just like the rest of the world. I couldn't understand what had happened to my loving older brother to replace him with this... this evil monster." Nunnally's voice shook as she continued, "You geassed people into doing everything you said. Your actions killed so many people, among them friends and family; Shirley, Euphy, mother, father, and Clovis. You tore the world apart."

As Nunnally spoke images flashed behind my fake smiling face. The first time I used my Geass to order those soldiers who were about to kill me to kill themselves, a time after I became emperor, when I ordered all my army to obey me on national television. Then came the deaths of the people she mentioned; me crying over Shirley's dying body trying to make her live as she visibly bled out her side where Rolo had shot her, me accidentally ordering Euphy to kill all the Japanese and the subsequent massacre that followed, and me eventually shooting her myself, mother and father slowly fading away, me holding a gun to Clovis's forehead and shooting.

"You even geassed me, brother"

Behind my face now appeared an image that made me sick to my stomach, Nunnally smiling overly kindly with wide open glowing red eyes holding out an intraclly carved trigger button.

The next thing Nunnally said was said in a quiet heartbroken voice, "You hurt everyone who ever tried to love you…"

Now behind me appeared an image of Shirley kissing me in the rain before cutting to the student council standing in front of her father's grave. Then to a picture of Kallen kissing me on the stairs, cutting to a close up of her beat up face as she appeared tied to the pole with the others. Me and Euphy sitting under the stars together on that island we once got stuck on, cutting to me shooting her in the head. C2 taking a bullet for me, cutting to an image of C2 curled up on the floor in tears after she lost her memory. An image of a happy looking Rolo and I together cutting to an image of me throwing his phone at him in a fit of rage while he curled in fear on the floor, an upset memory less C2 barely visible on the floor in the background.

The last one is the one that really tore me to pieces, like a million knives piercing through every cell in my body. It was images of me and Suzaku as children, smiling and laughing together like I never thought I would after our mother's 'death', then the background images faded away and it seemed like the video was put in play again.

The new Zero was running past the front guards toward me, orange-boy faking trying to stop him, exactly as planned. Zero taking his sword and knocking the gun I was half-heartedly holding out of my hand and impaling me though the stomach with it in one fell swoop. The view zoomed in to get close up on my exhausted looking face before turning to look Zero in the face. I watched as my past-self leaned into him, almost as into an embrace, and smeared a bloody handprint down the side of his mask as if I were stroking his cheek. The sight that was next revealed made my heart clench tightly in my chest. It was a view of the inside of the Zero mask, Suzaku was crying as he killed me.

The view was then back to facing me as Zero ripped his sword from my stomach. I fell forward down the ramp into Nunnally's lap. As Nunnally touched my face for the last time, I saw her give a jolt of shock before crying into my chest. For a second, the sound seemed to come on and we all heard the crowd chanting Zero's name. I could see Kallen in the picture again, looking away with tears flowing down her face. Only Nunnally screamed my name in desperate agony.

The images paused again and went back to the regular muteness as Nunnally started talking to me again in a weak voice, as if the scene had drained her of energy, "I assume watching from this view, you were able to see my jolt when I touched you." I nodded once slowly, "When I touched you I saw everything that happened from the time you got your geass, until your death. Even some things that you didn't know happened, or weren't there for, but that affected you all the same. I realized that, in the beginning, you did everything that you did so that I could live in a world where I could be accepted even with my disabilities. That you just wanted a peaceful world for me to live in.

"I was the people of the world's choice for empress of Britannia after your death, and was crowned the same day. I got everything in the world I wanted, but you took away the only thing I ever really wanted. All I ever wanted was to live at Ashford academy with you and Suzaku.

"After seeing everything, I knew you had failed when you tried to give Suzaku your code and that it was possible that you were alive somewhere. C2 visited me that night and I made a contract with her. She would give me the last geass if I promised to find you. I haven't seen her since then. I found out that my geass was to see into alternate dimensions in an almost holographic state, and when my geass went to the next level I could also project images across dimensions.

"It's been a year since your death in this dimension, and everything is going exactly as you planned with very few issues. Up until recently, Shneizel and Suzaku were helping me and the world is still at peace. Like you thought, everyone blamed you for all the problems in the world and negotiations went smoothly. On a more personal note Xingke married the empress."

Nunnally said the last part with a smile and showed a picture of a lovely wedding between the two.

"Doctors found a cure for him as well and he should live a long time. Milly finally gave Rivelz a chance about a month after your death, and they are engaged to be married in the spring in the homeland at the new palace. Milly has her own show now, too, and Rivelz started helping her with it after he graduated."

Nunnally then showed me a picture of Milly and Rivelz goofing off on a screen with a weather forecast screen in the back.

"Kallen is living with her mother now, who is doing much better. I made sure Kallen's mom wasn't put in jail for the refrain. Kallen graduated high school without having to act for the rest of her senior year and is now a member of my personal guard with her new boyfriend Gino."

There were a few images this time; the first one of Kallen eating dinner at a kitchen table with her mother, in a small house as opposed to the mansion she used to live in with her evil Britannian noble of a father. The second was an image of Kallen in her school uniform, but instead of the sickly appearance she usually tried to keep, her hair was flipped up with her headband and I could see she had the key to her Guren Satan hanging around her neck where everyone could see. The last was a picture of what looked like Kallen getting caught kissing Gino in the council room, her turning around to yell at whoever caught them while blushing furiously and Gino standing behind her waving lazily at the person who apparently just walked in.

Nunnally once again appeared, "I mostly wanted to find you so that I could say that I'm sorry for hating you and to tell you that you did a good job fixing our world. You did more than anyone should have to. I wanted you to know that it worked! That everyone is happy now." Nunnally took a big breath to compose herself, "I also wanted to say goodbye, Lelouch." There was a subtle shift in pressure behind me and Nunnally started wavering. When she realized this she started talking faster, "I can't stay much longer; the energy I tapped into is changing. But you're a hero Lelouch, and will always be one to me. I love you, Big Brother."

Her last sentence was weak, and in desperation I reached my hand out for hers one last time shouting at the top of my lungs, "NUNNALLY!"

She reached out her hand for mine, and when it disappeared before it could even reach mine to pass through she whispered, "Big brother…" in a sad sort of voice before she was gone.

I knew she was gone but I couldn't help shouting after her anyway, "NUNNALLY! Don't go… I love you."

I felt Hevlaska wake up, and heard loud clapping from someone behind me, as tears ran silently down my face.


	9. tension

Author's Note: Sorry it's so late I had it done a while ago but my amazing beta was having internet problems, and then I was. -_-'

The Black King's Ace

By Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 9: Tension

The clapping seemed to snap everything back in motion. I whipped my head around to see what jerk had the audacity to clap like a moron at a time like this. I wasn't surprised to see that ditzy jackass Kamui clapping and grinning like a fucking loon on crack. I was vaguely aware, in the back of my mind, that I had stopped crying, and started glaring at Kamui the Fool. Kanda and Lavi seemed tense, and even Allen was watching me carefully. Hevlaska went back to her upright position and had an air of waiting.

Kamui decided to grace us with his words by saying, "Oh, what a lovely example of sibling love! Almost as touching as my darling Lenalee and myself! Of course, I didn't become an evil emperor and take over the world for her!"

At this point, I couldn't take anymore mockery, and did the first thing that came to mind. I removed my contact, and screamed, "STOP! SHUT UP! HOW DARE YOU TALK ABOUT NUNNALLY?" And, when I realized halfway through my scream that it wouldn't work, I rushed at Kamui with my fist raised.

I hadn't taken two steps, when I felt arms around my waist holding me back. I saw Kanda raising his sword in front of his face, and behind him, I saw the bookman and Allen standing in front of Kamui. That only left one person to be holding me, because I didn't feel any breasts pressing my back. I turned my head and saw the sad green eyes of Lavi about an inch from my face.

I turned back to face forward, as Kamui gently nudged Allen and Kanda aside to stand in front of me. I glared at him, but he waved Lavi off and came face-to-face with me. "So, this is your innocence. I see. You cannot deactivate it, so you just use contacts to hide it. Judging by the fact that you clearly were about to use it on me, you can't use your weapon when it is covered by these contacts. Since you didn't actually use it on me, then, just like other innocence weapons, it won't work on humans. From your reaction," He said, nodding to my slightly widened eyes, "I'm going to assume that all of that is true. Hmm, interesting." He turned away from me and back to the railing, looking out at Hevlaska. "It seems to me, that you didn't let Hevlaska finish talking to you."

By now, I had calmed down. Kamui stating his observations had calmed me. I now realize that Kamui really only pretends to be stupid. It just seems that he has pretended so long that he has forgotten how to stop. That is the difference between someone like him and, say, Lavi. It's more obvious that Lavi is hiding something because he knows he's hiding something, whereas Kamui seems to think that this idiot side of him is indeed him. He reminds me a bit of myself; that realization makes me feel better that he is in charge of this strange order.

I step up to the railing next to him, and when he grins over at me, I can tell he's asking if I have calmed down. I nod and give a small smile in return before looking up in askance at Hevlaska. Slowly, the rest of the group went over to the railing as well. When we were all there, Hevlaska again started speaking. "I'm sorry about the interruption. It seems that someone was drawing off of my power to come here across the dimensions. I hope it did not cause too much of an inconvenience, as I stopped it as fast as I could. I believe I have finished my report on Mr. Britannia, even if I haven't. I need sleep now, and request you all to leave."

Kamui motioned us to follow him, and we did so, quietly. The people on the balcony were still not moving, and I wondered if there were any people there in the first place. We followed Kamui in silence all the way back to his office where we had found him.

There were two chairs and a small couch in front of Kamui's desk. Kanda sat on one end of the red couch, while Allen sat in the middle, and Lavi sat on the other end with a grin now adorning his face. Lenalee sat on the chair closest to Kanda's end of the couch, and Bookman sat in the other matching chair. I came in the room last, trying not to step on the papers littering the floor, but eventually giving up when, about three steps in, there appeared to be no spaces between the piles. I stood behind the couch with my arms crossed and noticed that there were even bigger piles of paper on Kamui's desk, just barely managing to not hide his face. I also noticed that Kanda was wearing a look of annoyance to cover the fact that he didn't seem to mind sitting that close to Allen and the fact that he was actually interested in what was going on.

These people were so different than the ones I was used to. Allen had explained to me the war against the akuma, but everyone here reacted to war in a way I've never seen before. The people I'm used to would have locked me up by now after gleaning that kind of information about me from my sister. As it stands they appeared wary, but not scared, and, also not like they were about to lock me up in jail. However the case may be though, I sincerely wish that they had not been there for my little talk with Nunnally.

"So, Lelouch, was it?" Kamui turned to me and asked, "What exactly are you intentions here at the order? Not to mention your agenda for this dimension."

Kamui was staring me directly in the eye with a serious face, and even the others, besides Kanda, had turned in their seats to look at me. I met Kamui's stare dead on as I gave my answer, "I had no intention of coming to any other dimension when I planned my death except the place where everyone who dies goes, to C's world."

At this point there was an interruption by Lavi, "C's world? What no heaven or Hell or whatever?" He was serious as he asked this,, obviously not kidding. If I remember my introduction to him clearly, he was some sort of archivist, he probably wants to know everything I can tell him for his records.

I felt myself smirking at his question, but decided to enlighten him, "There is no heaven or hell, only the collective unconscious known as C's world. There is no God, or maybe it's like everybody is god. Every person's unconscious mind in every dimension is linked in a place called C's world. When a regular person dies, their spirit simply merges with the greater unconscious. When I came here I passed through C's world but because of an accident on my part during my death, I couldn't stay and had to move on to a different dimension. I didn't get to pick, the greater unconscious did and I ended up falling into the church."

I paused in my talking and Kamui took this moment to get me back on track, "Hmm, I see, so technically all of the exorcists were picked by everyone as a whole? That's very intriguing, however, it doesn't answer my questions, and certainly someone like you must have a plan by now?"

I sighed; I had no idea how these people were going to take this next part. I unbuttoned the top of my jacket and pulled down my collar to reveal my secret. On the lower part of my neck there was half a code symbol. A red bird in flight cut in half. Nobody really reacted, so I started looking around the room. My eyes zoomed in on an old fashioned metal letter opener on the edge of Kamui's over-cluttered desk. I strode passed the couch and grabbed the letter opener, I stood next to the desk so Kamui could see what I was going to do next.

I had to calculate this next part, I needed everything to be instantaneous and it took a few hours to heal a dislocated shoulder. After thinking for a couple seconds I brought the letter opener to my right wrist and dug the tip in about an inch. I winced in pain, but grit my teeth and dragged the letter opener across the whole width of my wrist.

There were exclamations from Allen and Lenelee, but I cut them off by saying, "Watch." And holding up my wrist so they could see better. Blood was already starting to run down the inside of my sleeve but I kept a straight face as they watched. About two seconds after holding my arm up, I could feel the skin knitting together and the pain fading.

Looking into the eyes of everyone watching, the prevailing feeling reflected back at me was shock. The only expression that was different was Kanda's. At first it registered as shock like everyone else's, but that only lasted a few seconds before something else took over. It was a look of deep understanding, hidden by a forced look of disgust. It made me think, why would he be able to understand. I've seen nothing about his outward appearance to suggest that he would know anything about this kind of thing. Could it be that he knows something about geass? Could he have become involved in whatever passed for geass in this world?

Our eye contact was broken when Lenalee ran up to me and grabbed my wrist. She had a panicked look on her face and kept turning my wrist over in her hand as if searching for where the gash had gone. When she was done, she crossed to the other side of the room and pulled a first aid kit out from under yet more papers. She crossed back and knocked some papers off the edge of Kamui's desk amid his protests and opened the kit on it. Finally she turned back to me and demanded, "Take off your jacket right now so I can wash the blood off."

I didn't dare argue with her after knowing Kallen for as long as I have. I slide the jacket off, and let it fall to the floor. She took some wipes from the kit, and started washing the blood off my arm; the blood had managed to flow all the way to my elbow. Lavi stood up, and walked over to us as well. He got to about a foot away from me, on the opposite side as Lenalee, and started looking me up and down. I couldn't help but question him. "What are you doing, Lavi?"

He just smiled at me and said, "It's amazing! You don't look like you can't lift a paperweight." To my growing annoyance, he grabbed my left arm, and started squeezing it saying, "Although,, you are really thin. Hmm. I bet you get all the ladies, you're so good looking!"

I felt a vein pulse in the back of my head and couldn't help but think, Is this guy hitting on me? I didn't really say anything, though, before Lenalee leaned over and smilingly smacked Lavi on the back of the head. Lavi sulked, and went to sit back down. I turned toward Lenalee, smiling in thanks for getting Lavi to back off, when I felt a hard smack to the back of my head, too, and Lenalee shouting in my ear, "YOU IDIOT! YOU SHOULDN'T BE SMILING EITHER! YOU CAN'T JUST CUT YOURSELF LIKE THAT! Even if you do heal fast."

This made me angry. What right did this girl have to hit me, and yell at me like that, when I barely even knew her? I could feel myself giving my coldest glare. Kamui must have gotten nervous for her, because he said, "Lenalee, my precious little sister, why don't you go see that our guests' rooms are ready, hmm?"

Lenalee just about ran out of the room, as if she was afraid of me. I felt a bit bad, but the girl really had no right. I didn't exactly mean to scare her. I did appreciate her help, I suppose.

Kamui then turned back to me with what almost seemed a glare and said simply, "Explain, now."


	10. giant robots

AN: here's the edited chappy-poo

Disclaimer: I own nothing! Otherwise there would be much, much more steamy yaoi!

The Black King's Ace

By Molly Ishida

Beta'd by Ostensibly Lucidina

Chapter 10: Giant Robots

After the incident with Lenalee, it occurred to me that I should probably calm down. My emotions seemed to be all over the place, and it wasn't like me. Nunnally's unexpected visit seemed to have affected me more than I had originally thought. If I was going to give these people a decent and convincing explanation, I needed to have the utmost control of myself so as not to reveal too much to the people that had no idea of the pain of geass.

Looking at their faces, though, shows me they know other types of pain. However, this observation does little more than reinforce my desire to keep them from any of the true horrors of my curse. I wanted to extinguish this curse forever, but only succeeded to insure it lived on. Regardless of this, I had to start somewhere in my explanation, and I had to do it now. I would have to think fast about what I needed to keep out as I told it, while making sure none of them caught the turmoil I was feeling due to this out-of-control situation.

"In the world where I come from, there is a curse hiding in the shadows." With only my first sentence, I can already tell that I perked Kanda's interest, which he gave away by the almost imperceptible shifts in his posture. In fact, at the mere mention of the word 'curse', it seemed that the whole room came to attention. "My father robbed this curse from his much older brother. He had been coveting it because it makes you live forever." At the mention of my father, I felt my eyes go cold, and a bit of hate seep to the front of my mind.

"My father wanted to do something terrible, and needed to be eliminated. I took the duty upon myself to see to his death, and managed to persuade C's world to take care of him. Before he died, he sought his revenge by forcing the curse on me. I became the evil emperor to cause the world to join forces to defeat a common enemy. Me. That way, when I died, peace could be achieved. My plan was to give my curse to… a friend, whom, I had assigned to look after Nunnally. I never told him what I was going to do, but I knew he would need it for the mission I had forced upon him." Just the thought of Suzaku almost brought a smile to my face, but I pushed it back. After all, thoughts of him shouldn't make me happy, after everything I had put him through.

I scowled to myself, and continued with my story. "You saw my death. The boy in the mask was the friend, and I smearing the blood was a way to pass along the code. I mis-calculated, however, and was not able to transfer the whole code before I died, only half. This resulted in my body in my world dying, but my spirit going on to a new dimension. The half I kept of the curse gave me a new body in this world, identical to my original. Since I only got half, I still heal extremely fast, but if I die immediately, and don't have time to heal, I will not come back to life. If I had the full curse, I would have. However, I will simply be transferred to yet another dimension. Any questions?"

I didn't bother hiding my smirk when Lavi raised his hand as if he were in school. Lavi saw my smirk, but just grinned back, and asked his question. "How did you figure all this out? According to you, you died and went to this 'C's world' briefly, then fell into the church. Did C's world inject the knowledge into your brain or something? But that doesn't seem right, either, because you would know more than that, unless of course, you do and are just withholding information."

"I met a friend in C's world who filled the gaps in my guesses. She also allowed me to pick what I wanted to bring with me to this world." Saying this brought something to my attention, and I paused a moment to think. How was it possible for C2's copy to materialize my things in this world when they rightfully belonged in my original world? Hm… It was something to think upon at a later date. "I have no idea how she managed to get my things at the present, but I definitely plan to look into it."

Lavi seemed to accept this for the moment, so I turned my attention back to Kamui, who seemed to be thinking about what I had just told him. After a moment he seemed to come to a decision. "Both of you may join the Order, for now. There were no issues with anything involving Allen, or his joining, after receiving that letter from General Cross. As for Lelouch, we are short on exorcists, and your weapon seems to be genuine, if peculiar. You're still suspicious, which means no solo missions, but as far as that goes, it's probably better to keep you near us. If you prove to be an enemy, we'll keep track of your movements, and get rid of you immediately if things go wrong. We need to get both of you fitted for coats and whatnot, so let me call my darling little Lenalee back up."

After issuing me the warning not to betray them, "or my life be forfeit", Kamui went right back to his spazzy self when talking about Lenalee. He turned to the closest bat-thing and started talking to it. "Connect to Lenalee's golem. Lenalee! They passed. Could you please come back to the office and fit them for coats?"

Kamui then turned back to me. "Is there anything else you would like to tell us before my Lenalee comes back?" He turned towards Allen, "Or you, since I didn't really ask you anything?"

Allen shook his head no, and Kamui glanced back in my direction. I sighed, I was quite done with explaining myself, but, I felt that one last thing needed to be mentioned. "With Allen, you are already aware that he got sufficient training for his new job, but have no idea the kind of battle experience I have." Kamui leaned forward to show that he was listening, and like before everyone else seemed to be paying attention.

"In my world, since I was seventeen, I have played a major role in a war engulfing the entire world. In fact I jump-started the war two years ago to get the Japanese people out of suppression from under the Britannian empire-"

"Wait so you're Japanese?" This actually came from Kanda, who I was still under the impression was trying to pretend he was ignoring me, so the question came as a bit of a surprise to everyone.

"Well, I was living in Japan at the time, my mother was Japanese and my father was the king of Britannia. Nunnally and I were disowned when I was ten, and thought my mother died. We were sent to Japan to live with the Prime Minister as hostages, and when the first war in Japan started, we went into hiding as regular citizens so that everyone would think we had died in the war. That is beside the point, however."

"So are the countries set up the same as in this world?" This time it was Allen, who had kept fairly quiet through all of this, thus far. It seems everyone was actually interested in my life.

"I made friends with Timcampy the night before me and Allen left for the Order, and I got him to show me a map of the world. It's a long story. I will tell you when I am done telling you my fighting history." There was an implied thought in there that I hoped they got; that the story shouldn't irritate Lenalee, but that my fighting history might, and should probably be told before she showed up.

They seemed to get it and Kamui nodded for me to continue. "Anyway in this war I did participate in quite a few battles, but the battles were fought in giant robots and not hand-to-hand-"

"GIANT ROBOTS!" Kamui yelled and jumped to his feet, knocking at least two giant stacks of paperwork to the floor and causing Allen and Lavi to jump about a foot in the air. Kanda seemed used to it, and the Bookman managed to keep himself composed. I only just managed to keep from jumping, as well, at the sudden interruption.

I turned an icy look on Kamui before relying, "Yes, although, that is not what we call them. I worked the controls of a new prototype I stole from the government, usually. While I was doing that, I ran the battles as the tactical leader. For the most part, I led people to battle, I didn't fight hand-to-hand. I can use a gun, but other than that I don't really have any skills. I am not a very physical person, and usually had someone as a sort of body guard. On top of that, the enemies I had killed were people, not these akuma monsters that you fight. I don't know anything about them, except the little Allen told me earlier."

As everyone was contemplating this latest bit of, admittedly embarrassing, news on my fighting abilities, there was a light knock on the door to Kamui's office. Kamui seemed to brighten up, and called out lovingly to his sister, "Please come in my dear Lenalee!"

Lenalee seemed to hear him, and came in a bit shyly. She was carrying a measuring tape in one hand, and a mostly empty tray of what appeared to be mugs of coffee. The only mug the tray was a blue mug with a spastic pink rabbit on it. Upon closer inspection, I could see she had some blank papers under the tray, as well as a couple pencils resting near the bottom of her hand.

As she approached Kamui's desk, she avoided making eye contact with me. When she got to the desk, she gave Kamui his cup of coffee, and while he spastically thanked, her she turned around with a big smile on her face, seemingly shaking off all shyness. I could tell that she was still nervous, though, by the suspicious and slightly scared glance in my direction out of the corner of her eye.

Lenalee approached Allen, and pulled him to his feet amongst loud protests on his part, which she readily ignored. She started measuring every part of Allen, while mumbling things to herself. When she was done, she stood up straight to ask Allen a question. "So, I have an idea of what your jacket should look like, is there any special features you want added?"

Allen thought for a moment before replying, "I'd really like a hood. My hair really stands out, and I don't like drawing too much attention."

Lenalee nodded her agreement before going to Kamui's desk and clearing a space. She took a sheet of blank paper, and a pencil, and started scribbling like she would die if she didn't finish in the next ten seconds. When she was done, she turned towards Allen and held up the picture she had drawn. From what I could see it was an exorcist jacket, a little like Kanda's, in that it was about ankle length. Kanda wore his with only the top part buttoned and the back trailing in the air behind him though, whereas this jacket was closed all the way down and had a hood. Allen nodded that he liked it. Lavi seemed excited over Allen getting a jacket, while Kanda was pointedly looking away from the proceedings. It seemed that Bookman had snuck out while Lenalee was drawing, no longer being interested in the proceedings.

Lenalee took a couple of steps toward me with the measuring tape, her head bowed. I felt increasingly bad about my glaring earlier. After all she meant no harm; she was simply trying to treat me like she treats the rest of this order, like someone she can be familiar with, like family. The thought made me wince; I didn't exactly have the best history with family. And remembering back, it took me ages to lighten up around the student council. I suppose I over-reacted because I am not used to people I just met being familiar with me, or concerned for my well-being.

As Lenalee started to take my measurements in silence, I whispered so that nobody else in the room could hear over their own chatter, "I'm terribly sorry about my earlier actions. I had no right to glare at you I am simply not used to strangers being familiar or concerned about me. I cannot say I appreciated the hit; however, I do appreciate the concern, and hope that you don't start fearing me, Miss Lenalee."

Lenalee just smiled up at me and said, "It's no problem. I over-reacted too. I'm used to treating everyone in the order as my family, and just reacted without thinking. Now!" Her smile turned into a grin, "Would you like any special additions to your coat, Mr. Lelouch?"

I smiled a small smile in return, "Just Lelouch is fine. And I need a high collar to hide my geass symbol."

"Right away, Lelouch!" Lenalee went back to her remaining piece of paper, and once again started scribbling furiously. When she was done, she held up a picture of what looked like my school uniform coat, only with the marks and colors of an exorcist.

I felt myself smile grimly as I looked at the picture of what would be my new exorcist coat. I was really doing it... I was once again getting myself involved in a war that I needn't be bothered with. I was sacrificing any chance of happiness I might have had in this new world to go to battle once more. I could not help but mock myself on the inside; it appeared that my whole immortal life was going to be centered around war after war. It's ironic that the man who fights for peace would be locked in infinite war. C's world, what kind of games are you playing exactly?


	11. painting of life

A/N- So unfortunately none of my chapters from this one on are going to be betaed do to my friend who's been doing it for me going off to college and unable to continue soooooooooooooo yeah please ignore my mistakes and if any of you are interested in betaing let me know or if anyone has questions about the story feel free to PM me I know some people don't like when stranger do that but it's fine with me. Anyway I really liked how this turned out and hope you do too.

The Black King's Ace

Chapter 10: painting of life

Lenalee showed Allen and I to our rooms. The hallway looked the same as all the others. The floor we were on was a circular shape like the rest of the floors I had been on and in the middle was the seemingly endless hole. The outside walls were lined with identical plain brown doors. Mine and Allen's rooms were right next to each other. All the way up to the floor we were staying on Lenalee talked incessantly about how everyone in the order looked at this place as home no matter how little they were actually here and how we should too and all that crap. It's not as if we can just automatically think of this strange building as a home right away in any case and in my case I doubt I could think of anywhere in this dimension as home.

I waved half-heartedly to Allen and Lenalee before heading into my new room. The room was small with only a twin bed on the right side of the room and a small brown dresser on the left side. The floor was bare dark wood that I knew would be cold in the mornings and the walls were covered in a light brown wallpaper which on closer inspection seemed to be covered in little faded red roses. The bed sheets and quilt was also a matching light brown color. In all honesty it was kind of drab and boring, especially in comparison to Ashford academy.

I set my bag on the floor by my bed and lay down with my hands behind my head and my eyes closed. There was far too much truth spoken today. I hadn't told anyone this much truth in my whole life and honestly I was exhausted from it. It felt like my soul was drained.

Something compelled me to open my eyes though and the first thing I saw was a painting over my dresser. I wondered how I could have missed it for a moment before realizing that the painting being flat I had to be at an angle to it to see it and if I hadn't been so tired I would have slapped myself for being so idiotic.

It was a painting of a chess set. It was painted so the set was at a tilted up sideways angle so that you could clearly see all the pieces. The set was painted with a background of black tinged with an ominous red hue. All the white pieces looked battered and only the king still stood, barely, painted in the process of falling. All of the pieces in the squares they'd have started in had the game just started. All the black pieces were still standing and looked pristine, but their side of the board was covered in wet marks like rain, or tears. Only the black king stood out of its starting position. The black king stood in the middle of no-man's land on the board. It was still standing tall but it was covered from top to bottom with blood that formed a shining pool around its base.

I felt myself stare fixedly at the black king without blinking. I sat up as if to get closer to the painting against my will. I felt as if I was staring at a perfect painting of my life. Just as I felt my vision becoming unfocused there was a loud obnoxious knock on my bedroom door.

I shock myself out of my daze and went to open the door. It was Allen with a huge grin on his face. I almost slammed the door in his face for looking so happy. I did not feel like dealing with anymore idiots at this time. But I decided to be the good boy like usual when dealing with most people and greeted him while donning an extremely forced happy smile. As if I was really happy to see him after all that, I just wanted to sleep.

"Hi Lelouch! I was just headed down to the cafeteria and wanted to know if you wanted to join me. Neither of us has eaten since this morning."

I agreed. Kicking myself the whole time, but my stomach had been complaining for the last little while and I felt it would get to the point where I couldn't just ignore it like I had been.

The walk down was mostly silent much to my surprise. Allen seemed to have finally picked up on the fact that I really didn't want human company at the moment and was keeping silent. Do to this the cafeteria came as a bit of a shock to the senses. The whole area was a lot better lit than most of the order and the lights stung my eyes. There was also a constant chattering undertone to the whole place and I could already feel a headache coming on.

Allen and I got in line behind Kanda who I heard order soba from whoever was working the counter before walking off. I got a good look at who was running the counter when it was Allen's turn. It was some hyper looking black guy with pinkish-purple cornrows. As soon as he talked to tell Allen that he could order anything I could tell he was extremely gay and chuckled on the inside. This could be fun.

I was so preoccupied with analyzing the chef that I didn't actually hear what Allen ordered and felt my eyes widen at the amount of food Allen was carrying on his tray. I was sure that if the tray were on the floor at my feet the pile of food would reach well above my head. Allen continued to stand next to me as I approached the counter to give my order, obviously meaning he was going to wait for me and the smirk that had returned to my face after my shock wore off widened further.

By the time I was facing the counter my devious smirk had been replaced with the most flirtatious smile I could come up with. The man was still so excited over Allen's order that he barely noticed me until I leaned in and rested my armed on the counter.

I stared directly in his sunglasses and said, "Hello, and who might you be?"

He jumped a bit before donning a brilliant smile and replying, "Well hello to you too darling, you must be new. You can call me Jerry."

During this I could sense him appraising me behind his sunglasses and when he was done I watched as his smile turned flirtatious to match mine. Ah, so he got the game.

"I see they roped in a cute one this time darling."

"Not as good looking as the ones they already have."

By this time I could see how confused Allen was becoming out of the corner of my eye and how he just looked back and forth between the two of us ass if his brain were imploding.

At this point Jerry took my hands and I had to fight to keep the flirty look on and not smirk evilly at how much this was freaking out Allen.

Jerry pulled me back in the game by pulling my hands slightly to get my attention and starting up the dialog again, "So sweetie what can I get for such a handsome, charming boy?"

"Nothing that's on the menu I can assure you."

"I promise you can have some of that latter. For now you need to eat something my sweet, I wouldn't want your gorgeous body wasting away."

I suddenly pulled away and adverted my gaze while putting on a blush by thinking of something Suzaku did once. I put my hand to my mouth to hide my evil smirk that had finally broken free.

"I-I'm afraid I'm not familiar with your menu and I couldn't impose upon such kind good-looking man."

I think Allen's eyes just about fell out of his head at that one.

Jerry caught my chin and turned it to face him and I could of sworn our act had caused sparkles and flowers to pop out behind us as I made my eyes look like I was about to cry from 'imposing' on the chef.

"Nothing you ever do could impose on me my dear! You can just have some of my _personal_ favorite "

He abruptly turned away to start cooking, shattering the illusion of flowers and sparkles. I turned a big smile on Allen who looked like he was about to drop his tray in shock at my totally different attitude. Jerry came and gave me my food with a wink to which I replied with a nod.

As I passed Allen I hit him in the shoulder to snap him out of it and lead him to an empty table in the back. I sat on the side of what was essentially a big picnic table that was facing Jerry and saw him wave at me. I waved back half-heartedly before turning my attention to Allen who had just plopped his tray down in the spot across from me, looking extremely dazed.

He turned to me and asked, "Are you gay?"

I smirked, "That remains to be seen doesn't it?"

He looked flabbergasted, "Well, you don't like Jerry do you? He's got to be at least forty!"

"No, I don't, do you?

"No of course not!...But, if you're not why were you flirting with him?"

"Two reasons" I held up one finger, "One; It was fun and I was stressed and I knew he would play along" I put up a second finger," And two; I just made a potentially useful ally. Someone like that doesn't get a lot of cute boys flirting with them which means he's thankful for my game and might help me out latter. Besides it's not as if he really believe that an 18 year old boy could be attracted to him for real, even if I was gay."

Allen's reply was cut off by the sound of Kanda yelling at someone from across the room. When I looked over I saw Kanda yelling at a guy wearing a long white coat like most of the people in the room and I realized that they weren't exorcists and I wondered who they were and what they were doing here if they weren't exorcists. From what I could hear Kanda was made because the guy he was yelling at and the rest of the group at the table behind him were crying over a fallen companion and disturbing his dinner.

I scoffed at this Kanda guy, who did he think he was to tell someone they couldn't mourn someone important to them. Apparently Allen was thinking along the same lines because when I looked to see how Allen was taking this h was already gone and I could see him holding Kanda's arm to keep him from hurting the guy he was arguing with.

I quickly got to my feet and stopped myself from falling as I hurried over to the scene. On closer inspection you could almost see flames roaring behind Allen and Kanda as their anger rolled off in waves.

I joined the conversation a bit late but I heard Kanda talking to Allen, "Get your hand off me. I hate cursed people. You have no say around here. You're just going to die like all the others come talk to me when you've been here six weeks without dying, moyashi."

"IT'S ALLEN!"

I put my hand on Allen's shoulder and glared at Kanda as hard as I could, "You do not have the right to say if someone does or does not mourn people they care about."

Kanda turned his attention to me and replied, "You have even less right to talk than he does, inpo. At least he comes from this dimension, your just cursed trash that's imposing on us. For you information Finders die off like bugs and are just as easy to replace. Anyone can be a Finder, only us exorcists really matter."

Allen dropped Kanda's arm as if disgusted as me and Kanda continued glaring at each other. Kanda abruptly turned away and I yelled after him, "Just so you know you're not the only one who speaks Japanese and I'm not a wimp nor is Allen a beansprout."

Kanda turned to face me and smirked, "You're not worthy of being from my noble country so excuse me if I forgot."

Allen had finally had enough and walked right up to Kanda to continue arguing while I slipped off to the side to watch. I happened to be standing next to Jerry's booth as I watched and noticed he was watching as well.

I heard Jerry make a comment, "Those two would make a cute couple wouldn't they hon.?"

I observed them for a moment before replying, "Well for hating cursed people Kanda seems to have no problem being near Allen." My observation was places as Kanda moved right into Allen's face to yell at him some more."

"hmm, oh I never got your actual name darling."

I turned to look at Jerry and held out my hand to shake his, "Lelouch, my names Lelouch vi Britannia."

Jerry accepted my handshake while saying, "That was quite an interesting little performance, and you're quite the actor. Although you should know I'm used to playing the submissive role in those sorts of games."

" Thank you, I kind of figured but I've never taken the lead like that so I hope you'll excuse me. I hope to do business with you again in the future. Now however I've had a long day and am headed up to bed."

Jerry dropped my hand before relying," I'll be looking forward to it, until then have a nice night Lulu."

I could hardly control my thought at that name but didn't say anything as I left Allen with Kanda and headed back up to my room. When I got to my room I didn't bother changing and just got into bed. I noticed Timcompy flying in circles above my bed and wondered vaguely if Allen would miss him latter. The last thing that crossed my mind before I drifted off was what it would be like to have Suzaku here with me in this world too. Would we fight like Kanda and Allen?


End file.
